


Sunlight and  Red Spider Lilies       (. . .to see you smile)

by quiet_or_die



Category: Saiyuki, Saiyuki Gaiden
Genre: Anxiety, Cancer, Character Death, Chronic Pain, Depression, Deterioration due to illness/disease, M/M, Mentions of filicide, Suicide Attempt, black mail, mention of neglect, mentions of abuse, mentions of vomiting, unseen suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 01:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12025200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet_or_die/pseuds/quiet_or_die
Summary: Goku is a lonely inpatient ward of a hospital owned by Koumyou. Overtime he becomes friends with Sanzo, Tenpou, Kenren, Koumyou, Hakkai, Gojyo, and others. This is about how Goku, Sanzo, and Koumyou touch many of the lives they come in contact with, and how their unique personifications of Buddhism shape others’ faith.





	Sunlight and  Red Spider Lilies       (. . .to see you smile)

**Author's Note:**

> My lovely and wonderful beta is @alecjmarsh.  
> And the amazingly talented @jelainethefirst did this absolutely gorgeous artwork for this fic: https://asuni-jelaine.deviantart.com/art/Red-lily-finished-703210584?ga_submit_new=10%3A1504801033
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Saiyuki and all of its characters belong to Minekura, the Buddhist terms I defined using https://www.dharma.org/resources/glossary/
> 
> Kanzeon is referred to by “ne” and “nir” as in the manga she is intersex in the manga and I wanted to have her more gender fluid in this. 
> 
> Partial Glossary, from https://www.dharma.org/resources/glossary/:
> 
> Why?  
> As Saiyuki uses Buddhism, it draws on a wealth of knowledge we do not necessarily have. Just as “the Lamb" or “Sodom and Gomorrah” draws off knowledge of Christianity. I am trying to do the same using Buddhism. However, I am not primarily Buddhist and I cannot translate what has not been translated for me. I compared easily accessible sources found through google search and liked this website’s explanations. I apologize if I misuse anything or portray it inaccurately. Please, please let me know if I have done so and I’ll correct it immediately. When reading Western Classics, it is assumed we have such background in Christian knowledge as well as Western philosophy. I merely want to give Buddhism the same power and respect as it is heavily involved in a manga and anime I highly value.
> 
> Terms I use:
> 
> Bodhisatta/Bodhisattva (Pali/Sanskrit): One who takes a vow to become a fully enlightened Buddha; someone known for unbounded readiness and availability to help all sentient beings  
> Dana (Pali/Sanskrit): The practice of giving; generosity. Dana is the first of the ten paramis, qualities to be perfected to become a Buddha  
> Dukkha (Pali): Suffering; of pain, both mental and physical, of change, and endemic to cyclic existence; first Noble Truth that acknowledges the reality of suffering  
> Karma/Kamma (Sanskrit/Pali): Action, deed; law of cause and effect; intentional action, either wholesome or unwholesome that brings pleasant or unpleasant results  
> Kilesa (Pali): Defilement; unwholesome qualities; a factor of mind that obscures clear seeing; a hindrance to meditation; also known as afflictive emotion  
> Karuna (Pali): Compassion; of the four Brahma-Viharas (sublime abodes)  
> Metta (Pali): Loving kindness, gentle friendship; a practice for generating loving-kindness. Helps cultivate natural capacity for an open and loving heart, traditionally offered along with other Brahma-vihara meditations that enrich compassion, joy in happiness of others, and equanimity. Leads to development of concentration, fearlessness, happiness and a greater ability to love.  
> Mudita (Pali): Appreciative or empathetic joy; cultivation of happiness when seeing another's good fortune or happy circumstances; one of the four Brahma-Viharas (sublime abodes)  
> Panna (Pali): Wisdom; of the five spiritual faculties  
> Passaddhi (Pali); Physical and mental calm. Of the seven factors of enlightenment  
> Piti (Pali); Gladdening of mind and body. Of the seven factors of enlightenment  
> Saddha (Pali): Faith, confidence; of the five spiritual faculties  
> Sankhara (Pali): Mental or physical formation  
> Sati (Pali): Mindfulness. Careful attention to mental and physical processes; key ingredient of meditation; of the five spiritual faculties; one of the seven factors of enlightenment; aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path  
> Sila (Pali): Moral or ethical conduct, virtue, the foundation of Buddhist practice  
> Upekkha (Pali): Equanimity; ability to maintain impartiality of mind in midst of life’s changing conditions; of the four Brahma-Viharas (sublime abodes); of the seven factors of enlightenment  
> Vicaya (Pali); Interest and inquiry into experience. Of the seven factors of enlightenment  
> Vicikiccha (Pali): Doubt that undermines faith; of the five hindrances to meditation  
> Vipassana (Pali): To see clearly; insight meditation; the simple and direct practice of moment-to-moment mindfulness. Through careful and sustained observation, we experience the ever-changing flow of the mind/body process. This awareness leads us to accept more fully the pleasure and pain, fear and joy, sadness and happiness that life brings. We develop greater equanimity and peace in the face of change. Wisdom and compassion become the guiding principles of our lives.  
> Viriya (Pali): Physical and mental energy needed for diligent mindfulness; the strong, courageous heart of energy. Of the five spiritual faculties; one of the seven factors of enlightenment
> 
> And from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan:  
> kōan (公案) (/ˈkoʊ.ɑːn/; Chinese: 公案; pinyin: gōng'àn, [kʊ́ŋ ân]; Korean: 공안 kong'an; Vietnamese: công án) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and test a student's progress in Zen practice.

“You want me to _what_?”  
  
Koumyou, the hospital’s primary owner and Sanzo’s adoptive father, just smiles in that gentle way of his. Paired with his soft golden hair, the expression calls the relief and comfort one feels when traveling along open roads at night and the moon breaks away gauzy clouds, wisp by wisp. Ukoku, of course, contrasts with the dark smirk of a night lacking light from stars or moon. His position is safely behind his employer’s back where the other man won’t see—a hunched shadow like a crow overlooking the moon’s soft light.  
  
Sanzo’s annoyed frown deepens into a scowl.

“What the hell were the nurses doing to let a kid sneak out like that?”  
  
“Now, now. We nurses are _very_ busy,” Kanzeon, the head nurse and co owner of the hospital, admonishes, as ne hands Koumyou some files. When ne turns, nir hand splays across nirs hip, weight distributed in a jaunty fashion. Patients often call nir the Goddess of Mercy, but Goddess of Mischief would be much more accurate.  
  
“What, so I’m expected to deal with nir negligence?” Sanzo snaps back, glaring at nir. But Kanzeon smiles back cheekily and waves nir fingers at him—each one taking their turn wiggling at him, tempting him to just try and bite.  
  
“Goku can be very tricky when he wants to be,” Koumyou interrupts. His voice is unobtrusive, but always acts to still the noisy winds of sound around him and bring attention back to the calm at the center. “We can hardly blame anyone for losing track of him.”  
  
Sanzo ignores Ukoku’s leer with difficulty, resisting the urge to flip him or Kanzeon the bird and forcing his eyes to stay on his adoptive father’s.  
  
“Besides, I think it’d be good for you, Kouryuu.”  
  
It is the use of his childhood name that makes Sanzo give up his next protest. Ukoku’s ugly grin fades, and he looks at Sanzo seriously. Sanzo has no clue just why Koumyou keeps the man around, as Sanzo personally knows how cruel and untrustworthy he can be. But . . . Ukoku is honest with Koumyou, and seems to actually _like_ him (though Sanzo doubted it is any type of normal healthy type of feeling). However, there is one thing Sanzo and Ukoku have in common: both loathe to disappoint Koumyou or see him disappointed. So Sanzo gives in. Not to say that he admits his defeat so easily though.  
  
“And just how am _I_ supposed to find him?”  
  
“Oh, that should be easy enough,” Kanzeon breaks in, an indifferent hand waving dismissively, incongruent to nir mischievous smile. “The nurses have too much to do to just patrol the halls, but if you keep looking, I’m sure you’ll find him wherever there’s laughter and excitement.” And didn’t that just sound like a _Koan_ of some kind.  
  
“You know this isn’t what I meant when I said I'd help out around the hospital,” Sanzo grumbles as he headed for the door, trying not to feel like a child throwing a tantrum. Even as a kid, and with the same temper, he was never one for such scenes.  
  
“Thank you, Genjo,” Koumyou calls after him, before turning back to his conference with Kanzeon and Ukoku. How the three of them manage to run a hospital instead of causing it to spontaneously implode, explode, and then combust, is a miracle Sanzo could only attribute to the assholes that be.

 

* * *

 

“ ‘tch. Of all the stupid shit—”  
  
Scowling, Sanzo stomps down the pristine white hallways—sending nurses, patients, and random gawkers scurrying to get out of his way. Normally, he doesn’t mind helping out (it gives him great experience for his future medical career), but looking for a missing patient is ridiculous especially when he’s been walking aimlessly for at least an hour, and there is **still** no glimpse of the escapee. Seriously, why weren’t the nurses who lost him in the first place doing this?  
  
“WOAH! H-HEY, WATCH OUT! AHHH!”  
  
Sanzo looks up in time to see a kid-with-a-dumb-face careening toward him in a wheelchair—at speeds no wheelchair should be able to reach—and he just manages to leap out of the way.  
  
“The hell?”  
  
Troops of kids and teenagers in hospital gowns stampede past him, laughing and screaming, to run after the renegade. A few nurses scramble after, trying to grab their respective patients out of the madness. Sanzo’s annoyed scowl turns into a lethal one as he glares after The Hospital’s Carnival of Nightmare Brats. He’s pretty sure he knows who that idiot in the wheelchair is. . . . Damn Koumyou, Kanzeon, and Ukoku. _Especially_ Ukoku, Sanzo mentally grouses as he follows the trail of devastation, his gait something with the force and attitude of a stomp, but that somehow manages to be graceful and fluid.  
  
At the T intersection down the hall, the group of unseemly terrors and useless nurses are grouped around the open double doors that lead into one of the hospital’s many courtyards. With ill grace, Sanzo pushes through the crowd.  
  
“All right, go to your rooms or parents or wherever the hell you’re _supposed_ to be,” Sanzo yells above the vibrating chatter. _Useless_ nurses. Still grumbling at the kids, he finally reaches the front-most miscreants and can see the overturned wheelchair and its previous occupant sprawled among the flower casualties and dirt explosions. There’ll be no saving the red spider lilies, at the very least. The perpetrator of this mindless botchery (and the source of Sanzo’s current aggravation) is a boy with brown hair, golden eyes, a hospital gown, and a dopey smile on his face as he laughs cheerfully while the older kids help him up.  
  
“Son Goku?” Sanzo demands with the righteous indignation of the long-suffering, arms crossed forbiddingly.  
  
“Hm? Oh, hey!” The boy bounces, literally _bounces_ , over, all sunshine and breathless exhilaration. “Sorry ‘bout almost runnin’ you over earlier. I thought for sure I’d hit ya! You play sports or something? Cause you sure moved fast!” Goku trails off and waits expectantly. But just as Sanzo gathers the remnants of his abused pride (of course anyone would move quickly when faced with death by wheelchair and idiocy) and goes to speak, Goku’s eyes slide from Sanzo’s to somewhere higher.  
  
_“What?”_  
  
“Oh! Sorry. Jus’ your hair looks like the sun, it’s all shiny. . . . You know with the light behind you an’ all.”  
  
“Did you hit your head?” Sanzo asks dryly, before glaring at the kids trying to sneak by him and into the safer custody of the frazzled nurses. At least they have the sense to start grabbing the younger kids and clearing them out too. After he’s processed that yes, this kid really _had_ compared him to the sun, and then managed to dismiss such utter foolishness, Sanzo returns to the situation that is, unfortunately, in his reluctant hands. “Just what did you think you were doing?”  
  
But Goku is not suitably chastised and just keeps _grinning_ at him. “Weeellll, we were seeing how fast I could go in a wheelchair, but I guess I lost control. . . .” He looks sheepishly at the garden’s slaughtered innocents. The nurses finally get all of their missing charges safely away and flee, leaving the head honcho to Sanzo’s wrath.  
  
“I can _see_ that much.” Sanzo snaps, rolling his eyes. “I meant, just what were you thinking, deciding that was a good idea to do in a _hospital_? You could have hurt someone. And I do _not_ want to deal with the resulting paperwork.”  
  
But now, finally, he seems to be getting somewhere as the boy’s smile dulls and his eyes drop, feet shuffling. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble for anyone. I-I didn’t think about how someone coulda got hurt. . . .”  
  
“ ‘tch. Try to remember that before you try another harebrained stunt, monkeybrain.”  
  
“I’m not a monkey!” Goku’s protest carries the affronted indignation of adolescents everywhere.  
  
“Anyway, _you’re_ supposed to be _resting_ , in something you may have heard of, called a _bed_ ,” Sanzo continues, finding both protests and adolescent indignation completely beneath notice.

“Yeah, well, it’s booooring.” Goku scowls for a moment then smiles charmingly, trying to coax Sanzo into seeing it from his suffering perspective. But Sanzo is not swayed by anyone or anything, and Goku’s attempt only receives a flat stare and annoyed frown.  
  
“Do I look like I care?”  
  
“. . . not really.”  
  
“You are going back to your room, getting in bed, and staying there.” Sanzo states as he turns and proceeds back down the hall. Goku trails sulkily and grumbles under his breath, with the word “jerk” making at least one entrance.  
  
“What was that?” Sanzo asks in sub-zero tones.  
  
“Nothin’.”  
  
Sanzo is just starting to enjoy Goku’s silence when the kid speaks up again. “So, hey, what’s your name? You know mine already so. . . .”  
  
“Sanzo Genjo.” Sanzo replies grudgingly.  
  
“Huh. Sanzo Genjo. Saaaan-zo Gen-jo. Sanzo Geeen-jo.” Just as Sanzo is about to snap at Goku for his insistent repetitions, the younger stops—and beams up at him instead. “I like it—it’s all melodic but also really cool and powerful.” Sanzo just grunts. (What the hell is he supposed to say to that anyway?) “Say, I haven’t seen you before. . . . Do you work here?”  
  
“From time to time.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
This time Sanzo doesn’t even get a chance to process the silence, let alone enjoy it, before Goku starts chattering away again. “So you a nurse or. . . .”  
  
Sanzo sighs for what’s probably the thousandth time since meeting Goku, and resigns himself to conversation—at least for the time being. “I’m studying to be a surgeon.”  
  
“Oh. So you’re like, an intern?”  
  
Sanzo shrugs a shoulder (he can’t be bothered to shrug both) and doesn’t elaborate; it’s close enough to the situation and they’ve reached Goku’s room anyway. Sanzo stops by the door and crosses his arms, an eyebrow lifted in a silent “well? get in the damn bed and _stay_ there.” But Goku’s feet are—apparently—suddenly weighed down and he has to pull them slowly up then drag them across the floor with each step. Sanzo’s teeth grind. Goku looks up, grins, and walks more normally (albeit still _slowly_ ). Just through the doorway though, he comes to a complete halt.  
  
“Will I see you again?”  
  
And that simple question makes Sanzo uncomfortable—a feat that is practically worthy of an epic spanning hundreds of pages. He has never, in all the years he’s been in and out of his dad’s hospital, been asked that; even if he gets along well with a patient (also an occurrence that’s legendary in its rareness), he’s never been. . .latched onto like this. Never had such cautious but hopeful expectancy directed at him, full of nameless longing and too-plain loneliness. Such looks are meant for family and close friends, not for random dour hospital workers that the patient’s only met once.  
  
“I don’t know. . .” Sanzo starts slowly, mind analyzing data and seeking the best course of action. “I don’t exactly have set times or areas.”  
  
“Oh.” Goku looks at the floor, but not before Sanzo sees the disappointment and the truly baffling sorrow. Before he can even think of anything to say or do (that’s not standing there, numb, frozen, and friggin’ _useless_ ), Goku’s head rises and the tentative hope is back.  
  
“Well, I’m here all the time. So . . . maybe you could stop by sometime?”  
  
And here Sanzo had thought it couldn’t get more awkward. But he needs to go before he’s late for his evening class, and he’s still uncertain as this particular experience lacks anything that is familiar to him. Besides, he might run into Goku again, and if he says no, it’ll just be hell with the kid all depressed or sulky. So Sanzo ends up saying yes. . .and then turns into a goddamn ice sculpture when he hears the sound of his own acquiescence. But Goku, Goku’s grin is wider and more openly joyful than any Sanzo’s ever seen before, and he scurries across his room and into bed in an instant, without any further bidding.  
  
“See ya later then, Sanzo!” He calls back, bouncing into a more comfortable position.  
  
And so Sanzo just leaves it at that.

 

* * *

 

The next time Sanzo is at the hospital, he does miscellaneous tasks on the opposite of the building from Goku’s wing. The usual things: observe doctors working with patients, set up equipment for surgeons, yell at Jikaku for landing in the hospital (again) from lung complications ( _again_ ) due to smoking too much ( **again** ). But yelling at the old man of course doesn’t get anywhere. The old coot just smiles and responds, “don’t you tell me to quit. It smoothes out my wrinkles, even if it hasn’t done much for yours. You have way more than you should at your age, for that matter. And aren’t you a hypocrite, telling me not to smoke when you do?” As if he doesn’t already know that Sanzo _is_ a hypocrite, going to school for surgery and medicine while being a smoker, which was originally Jikaku’s fault anyway, back when they’d just met a few times. When Sanzo’s off at lunchtime, normally he’d leave to read or do homework or some shit, but he’d promised Goku so his footsteps turn reluctantly onto the path leading him to the kid’s room. Why had he agreed to this?  
  
“Uno!”  
  
“Ah! No fair, you totally cheated!”  
  
If anyone knows why, it’s certainly not him, but Tenpou and Kenren are sitting on the floor playing Uno with the kid. Tenpou, Sanzo knows fairly well, as he’s worked at the hospital for a while now. He started off as a doctor in the military, and acquired an impressive range of experience and an eclectic style of practicing. He gets along well with Koumyou and Ukoku. Koumyou and Tenpou share a love of philosophy and a fondness for kids, while Tenpou and Ukoku tend to discuss the latest medical journals and new procedures—often debating, each being the devil to the other’s argument. Kenren also was in the military, though he was a fighter pilot. After a few years, he used his army stipulation to go to college for mechanics, and ended up getting into team sports. He became some hotshot athlete (of what Sanzo doesn’t know and doesn’t care to), but an injury ended his career. Tenpou performed a successful knee surgery for him, but most coaches don't wait for a recovery process so Kenren lost his place on the team anyway. Supposedly, Kenren came to thank him (“ _just_ thank him”—yeah right), and the two started dating. Kenren went from a sports career to one in physical therapy, and applied at Koumyou’s hospital as soon as he was certified.  
  
Tenpou’s outfit is, well, almost immaculate. Besides his half collapsed collar and partially tucked shirt. But his lab coat is spotless. Though his glasses are slightly skewed and his mullet-reminiscent hair a tad messy. Kenren, however? Is wearing a tight low cut, black v-neck with some large winged skull hanging low on its thick chain (Sanzo’s pretty sure it’s considered “gaudy,” though he doesn’t know shit about fashion). He also sports an odd tattoo symbol on his forehead, black combat boots, spiky black hair, and orange and black biker gloves. Compared to all that, everyone else in this damn hospital becomes a model example of professionality. None of them flaunt their eccentricities like Kenren—even if Koumyou skips meetings and makes paper airplanes out of important documents, and even though you open Tenpou’s office and books literally spill out of the door and sweep you away in their tsunami waves, and even if Ukoku will go talk to cadavers and puts his lunch right there, down on top of a dead body and other shit while doing his mortician duties, and even though Kanzeon can always be found betting on horses or some shit the employees are doing just because it’s entertains her—win or lose—and she’s always bored. Actually, why does he even bother coming here? Much less plan to officially work here after school?  
  
Tenpou looks up and briefly meets Sanzo’s eyes then gives him a smile before making his move. “That’s all right, Goku,” he says calmly, placing down his card, “draw four, Kenren.”  
  
“Oh, you’re just askin’ for it now.” Kenren replies with a challenging smirk.  
  
They are taking this card game entirely too seriously. Sanzo is on the verge of leaving—Goku has company this time, he can always come by later (he’s not trying to postpone, nope)—when Goku spots him.  
  
“Sanzo!”  
  
“Oh, hey, kid.” Kenren moves a couple fingers in a sharp, single movement akin to a salute.  
  
Sanzo scuffs. “Why are you even here?”  
  
“Oh? Didn’t you know? Goku’s our secret love-child.”  
  
“You really came!” Goku interrupts.  
  
“I told you I would, dumbass.”  
  
“We were just entertaining Goku here during our lunch break.” Tenpou interjects.  
  
“Which ends in. . .” Kenren glances at his watch, “ten minutes.”  
  
“Awww.”  
  
“It’s alright, Goku, we’ll see you soon. Now remember to take your medicine, even if you don’t want to. . . .”  
While Tenpou gives Goku a lecture in the form of kind reminders, Kenren sidles over to Sanzo and leans nonchalantly on the wall next to him.  
  
“Glad the kid’s got someone else now.” Kenren says in an undertone. Sanzo is interested despite himself. Kenren and him have never really talked. "Tenpou, Koumyou, and I visit, but it’s hard sometimes for us to find time to hang out with him. And his friend, Nataku?” Sanzo nods, he remembers the boy with the golden eyes, pale skin, and serious expressions. He died just a month ago and Koumyou is still really upset about it. Kenren nods back seriously then pushes off the wall.  
  
“Hey, kiddo,” he calls as he walks over to the other two, ruffling Goku’s hair as soon as he’s in range. “See ya at therapy tomorrow, alright?”  
  
“Yup!” Goku agrees readily.  
  
Sanzo swats Kenren’s hand away when the man attempts to do the same to his hair on his way out. “Alright, alright, yesh,” the walking fashion calamity says, hands held up with his palms facing out, “touchy, touchy.” Suddenly, Tenpou’s hand comes down hard on Kenren’s shoulder.  
  
“Woah there,” Kenren exclaims, smirking as Tenpou steers him to the door and pretty much pushes him out. Tenpou waves his free hand as he follows his partner out.  
  
“Bye Ken-nii, Ten-chan!” Goku calls after them.

 

* * *

 

Tenpou removes his hand as soon as they’re a ways down the hallway. Kenren crosses his arms behind his head, hands overlapping where the skull meets neck, and is swaggering at Tenpou’s side, still grinning. “So what was with the manhandlin’? Do you just like the control or is there something I should know?”  
  
“I do like the control,” Tenpou agrees, with a smile as sharp and precise as his scalpel. “But there’s also a certain matter that needs to be taken care of.” And the smile becomes as cold and dangerous as the steel tool.  
  
“Oh? Wouldn’t happen to be something to do with Nataku’s uncle, would it?” Kenren asks, smirk taking on a scary competency that flexed with warning. That old conniving bastard has been trying to use Nataku’s death as a way to discredit Koumyou’s hospital and even though the death was from illness (not to mention that, like Goku, they had taken care of Nataku while his sole remaining relative wouldn’t come near—afraid of getting the disease, even though it wasn’t contagious), he’d gone and hired some _very_ good lawyers. It’s purely a power play on his part.  
  
“I thought you’d enjoy dismembering him with me.” Tenpou holds up a file, which he hands over.  
  
Kenren whistles. “Ohhh. Blackmail? How low of you.” Kenren flips through the contents, skimming them with the detailed speed of the experienced.  
  
“Koumyou isn’t very adept at dealing with such gross baseness and Kanzeon doesn’t care to. Besides, Ukoku was so very helpful.”  
  
“And you just love crushing people like this guy.”  
  
“Hmm, I prefer . . . tearing their life apart.”  
  
“How scary!”  
  
Tenpou catches the tossed folder.  
  
“Well count me in! I couldn’t _possibly_ ignore Ukoku’s rare kindness. Hope you didn’t go and get everything set up without me now.”  
  
One thing Ukoku and Genjo share with Tenpou and Kenren as well as each other is that none of them like anyone trying to tear Koumyou down. That man has given them all second chances, and they don’t intend to lose him now that they’ve reaped the rewards.

 

* * *

 

“So what’s your favorite food?” Goku demands, flopping down on his bed. Sanzo eyes the room but doesn’t find any chairs. Luckily there’s a window with a large enough ledge to sit on so he doesn’t have to choose between the floor or Goku’s bed. Tenpou and Kenren _just_ left and Sanzo can already feel the rhythmic drumming of a headache against the inside of his skull, vibrations spreading from the epicenter behind his forehead to the back of his head. Luckily, Sanzo had remembered something Koumyou used to do with chatty children who asked nonstop questions.  
  
“I said you only get two questions and you waste one on that? You really are dumb monkey.”  
  
“I’m not a monkey! An’ food’s important! You can tell lots from a person’s favorite foods. Like Kenren loves skewers of meat an’ cheese an’ veggies an’ stuff cause he likes ta switch things up and try new combos of things he likes, plus it’s simple and straightforward but with variety. Tenpou likes red bean buns cause they’re not too sweet and they’re filling, ‘a practical sweet,’ he says.”  
  
“. . . you’ve put way too much thought into this.”  
  
“So? What’s your favorite?”  
  
“. . . mayo.”  
  
All of Goku’s constant movement stops. “Mayo?”  
  
“Got a problem with that?”  
  
“Nope! Though that’s a condiment ya know, not a food.”  
  
Sanzo then finds out all about Goku’s love for food as his list of his favorites goes on for more than an hour. The kid’s always hungry, and even their hospital food is still only hospital food, so the nurses and Tenpou are always making food and bringing it for him. Now Sanzo knows who Koumyou sometimes buys food for.

 

* * *

 

Sanzo had expected it to be awkward, spending time with Goku, but the kid didn’t really seem to need anything beyond Sanzo’s presence, chattering away at him. Surprisingly, monkeybrain can be quiet. Sanzo starts doing his homework in Goku’s room, rather than going home. Sometimes Tenpou and Kenren come play card and board games with him when Sanzo does this, which is irritating, as it always gets pretty noisy, and even dangerous. (Tenpou is polite and professional, but all you needed to do to realize he could be malicious was try to tidy up his carpet and walls of books. Kenren, meanwhile, has no qualms about cheating or bribing to get his way.) Koumyou also would occasionally visit, usually sneaking out of the various meetings he is supposed to be at and coming to read to Goku or fold origami with him instead. It was true that no one else ever comes though.  
  
Of course, Goku still runs out behind the nurses’ backs and goes to visit other patients. The kids, Sanzo understands. They adore Goku and his sun-warm encouragement. But that Goku also visits the selfish, grouchy old dying patients—besides Jikaku, whom Sanzo has a grudging affection for—out of his own desire is something Sanzo files under the list entitled “Monkeybrain.” He talks to Koumyou about it, his adoptive father being the only one to whom he’ll admit he doesn’t understand something. Koumyou smiles and replies, “Goku is a sakura tree, Genjo. He spreads _Piti_ and _Karuna_ free of any cost to all who come across him. He desires only the _Mudita_ that comes from carefully drawing out those fragile blossoms of hope.” Kanzeon, of course, being the nosy person ne is, overhears and just comments with a snigger, “you act like a grouchy old man too, though you have the temper and competitive streak of a child.” Sanzo won’t admit it, but Kanzeon pretty much hit the x, but that only goes to support Goku’s lack of rationality, logic, or simple common sense.  
  
Unfortunately, Sanzo has been accredited “Goku-gopher” whenever the kid takes off. It comes to the point where the student is glad when Goku comes looking for him, irritating though that may be, as it saves him from wandering the halls aimlessly. At least it’s not his problem when he’s with a patient. Technically, he has the status of an intern and can be allowed to take on his own appointments on occasion.

 

* * *

 

Due to Goku and school, Sanzo’s rarely gotten to actively deal with any patients recently. When he works, it’s usually at the ER and he isn’t usually the one people come to for any necessary follow-ups. But Koumyou pulls him aside and asks him to take check in on the young woman who’s been on suicide watch for the last twelve hours, though Sanzo has no clue why his father thinks he’ll be the person with the _Karuna_ for it. Koumyou’s the one who possesses _Metta_ for women, children, and worried families with friends, and this case apparently comes with all three. The young female patient with long black braids asks for those visiting her to stay for the appointment; the two men stay but the kid goes to wait for them in the lobby for their return. Sanzo’s quiet as he examines the staples closing long slashes incised through the skin of her wrists. They look like they’re healing well, at least. Of course, he doesn’t exactly know what to say besides that. Sanzo never knows what to say to those who have tried to commit suicide in general.  
  
“Yaone’s going to be ok, right?” the dark-haired man asks.  
  
“They’re not infected so you’ll heal quickly, though there’ll be some scars.”  
  
“But what can we do?” the guy with a dangerously debatable haircut and earrings demands. “She needs help.”  
  
Sanzo ignores this while Yaone is just staring at the floor.  
  
“So why’d you do it?” Sanzo asks bluntly. Yaone blinks up, surprised, as whatever-his-name-is-with-black-hair advances on Sanzo.  
  
“The hell, man, asking that.”  
  
“It’s not any of your business,” his mister fashion failure’s gelid addition.  
  
“I—I just. . .” Yaone starts, bringing the room to a hang. “I failed again. I just want to repay everyone’s kindness . . . for helping me when they didn’t have to. But I . . . just keep messing up and getting in the way. I can never get anything done. I don’t even have the energy to get out of bed some days. I don’t, I don’t want to be a burden to anyone.”  
  
“Yaone—”  
  
“So you want to die? How, exactly, would that repay anyone’s kindness?” Sanzo challenges, maintaining _Upekkha_.  
  
“Hey—”  
  
“I . . . but I’m a burden. I’m making things harder for everyone. I can’t function like this. It’s unfair for them.”  
  
“That’s their choice, not yours, to decide if you’re burdening them or not.” Sanzo stands but doesn’t remove his fixed gaze from hers. “You can’t repay anything by taking your life. If you want to repay them, then you should keep on living.” Turning to leave, he adds to the room at large, “talk to Pippi, the nurse at the reception desk, she’ll get you the resources you need.” He looks back at Yaone: “You do have options, even when it might not feel like you do. Even if you’re not living in the way everyone claims you should, it’s your life, not theirs. You live however you want, however you can. Dying, you don’t have any more say in your life either.” With that, he leaves.  
  
Later, Pippi tells him Yaone arranged for bi-weekly appointments with a psychologist. He doesn’t really need that information, it’s not his business anymore. But Carrie thinks he cares for some reason or other. Probably because most of the doctors have meetings to discuss patients and follow up after an appointment. She also tells him that Yaone asked her to thank him for her, and that she had a beautiful smile. Only Koumyou could possibly fathom why she bothered adding that last bit instead of just delivering the frickin’ message. (Of course, Sanzo doesn’t even think, much less bother, to ask Koumyou about that matter.)

 

* * *

 

Sanzo’s never even heard Goku talk about his family, so he eventually asks Koumyou about it. Apparently Goku’s parents had died when he was a baby and later in life he had been mistreated at a hospital, with his guardians’ knowledge but lack of concern. When they too died, a social worker came to check on Goku’s case and found out about the situation. Instead of taking him to be adopted, he brought Goku to Koumyou’s hospital. Koumyou and social workers had started a program together to take care of kids like Goku with serious chronic illnesses, who likely would have a hard time being adopted due to the intensive care and expense they would bring to a household. Both the adoption people and Koumyou share joint custody somehow. Sanzo doesn’t ask for the details on that. He doubts Koumyou knows them anyway; it’s probably something Tenpou and Kanzeon worked out.  
  
The only thing that matters is that Goku is here now instead of with those bastards he’d had taking care of him before.

 

Of course, if Sanzo has learned anything about karma, it’s that whenever things seem to be going right and you’re just getting a steady footing, that’s when something smashes into the backs of your knees. Obviously, his past reincarnations have broken more than a few important universal laws or some shit, or else some deity or whatever just likes screwing with him, because Sanzo has truly unfortunate karma. A couple weeks after helping that chick and her obnoxious helicopters, Sanzo, Kenren, and Tenpou take Goku to the employee and visitor’s cafeteria, which has better food than the stuff the patients get (no matter how good it smells or looks, it never fails to have the exact texture and flavor of either soggy or dry cardboard). But instead of asking for everything, like he did the last time they did this, Goku stares at the food looking nauseous.  
  
“Kid?” Kenren asks, expression serious as if he’s preparing for action, the lack of a smile stripping away the humor and mischief to leave what lies underneath and is easier to miss.  
  
“Not hungry.” To Tenpou he adds, “headache today.” Kenren and Tenpou trade looks as Sanzo grumbles about how this was a waste of time then. Goku smiles, “But I get to spend more time with you guys!” And Sanzo just rolls his eyes, although he gets the kid to eat some chocolate pudding later, through more complaining about how they bring him here and he doesn’t eat. (Not that Sanzo’s worried. Not that Sanzo is keeping an eye on Goku and Goku is quieter than normal, and he knows Tenpou and Kenren know something he doesn’t.)  
  
Later on Sanzo searches for Goku’s complete file:

Goku has a brain tumor. They’re trying targeted drug therapy before chemo.

 

* * *

 

For the next week, Sanzo is too busy with schoolwork to even come to the hospital. The next time he does come, it’s Halloween—always a chaotic day for hospitals everywhere with emergency patients from those who got a broken nose as a trophy for scaring the wrong person, to drunken accidents, to gunshot wounds from gang fights. Helping out with ER gives Sanzo a lot of experience, but he generally loathes it as Ukoku is usually in charge. Their hospital is a decent size but with a small but highly skilled staff who are mostly trained across multiple disciplines. Occasionally Tenpou takes over, or Sanzo can sneak in and get assigned something before that asshole doctor notices. Whatever it is exactly that Koumyou and Ukoku have going on, it has no bearing on Sanzo’s relations with either. Likely it’s only their mutual care for Koumyou that’s stopped Sanzo and Ukoku from killing each other . . . yet. But oh, how that man makes Sanzo’s fingers twitch—longing for the weight of his Smith and Wesson pistol. (Childish it may be, Sanzo doesn’t care, he’ll plaster a photograph of Ukoku’s face over a range target anyway.)  
  
As usual, Sanzo has no luck and Ukoku was watching for him. As soon as he sees the younger, the bastard practically skips over, smugness incarnate. He’s all decked out in his black lab coat (and who the hell let him dye one?) and a black shirt that billows out beneath the arm in waves of translucent black fabric and has silver etched black feathers. Like the crow he is. And . . . Christ, Sanzo’s seen it all at this hospital. The man is wearing a _tengu_ mask over his fucking privates and a goddamn _garter_ belt which is holding up fishnet stockings over his tight black jeggings—and Sanzo’s now thankful for the placement of the damn mask.  
  
“How kind of you to show up to help us, Kouryuu.”  
  
“Don’t call me that.” Sanzo snaps automatically. Ukoku just raises his hands up in sardonic surrender and waits expectantly.  
  
“. . . Where do you want me?”  
  
Ukoku leers at him, but Sanzo grits his teeth and fights to keep his _Passaddhi_. “Weeeeelll, hmm. . . .” Ukoku pretends to think about it, but Sanzo knows he’s already decide which patient would irritate the student the most. “I guess you should take that one, yes, that’d be very helpful indeed.” Ukoku smirks as he nods at a tall redhead—obviously _very_ drunk, _very_ unhappy and dressed in an _extremely_ hideous cowboy getup (complete with a lasso, orange-tipped fake pistols, plastic spurs, and the hat that’s fallen sadly to the floor). One of his cheeks is scarred, but is partially hidden by his hair, which is long, smooth, and straight except for a few strands that angle up from his head and fall back down in graceful arcs. Any grace his hair shows is lacking in his personality, as he’s shouting at the benignly smiling man next to him and keeps trying to stand up and storm out. Unfortunately for him, he keeps stumbling and his friend, or whatever poor idiot got stuck with babysitting duty, pushes him back into the chair each time.  
  
Ukoku clears his throat, “problem?”  
  
“None,” Sanzo snarls. And that smug asshole puts up a damn finger, waving it mockingly as if he’s telling a kid “no-no”. One more point to him in his goddamn little game. Sanzo stalks away before he gives into temptation and gives their ER another case to work with. The brown-haired victim glances up as Sanzo heads over, and leans in to say something to the redhead, and Sanzo has to revise his earlier diagnosis. The benign smile is somehow colder, and whatever he said has an instant effect on the drunk, who stops yelling and slouches back in his set sulkily—furthering Sanzo’s conclusion that he has all the maturity of a five-year-old. And oh, the friend is holding a plastic sword, a bloodstained coat, and a hockey goalie mask. Sanzo is definitely revising his internal data. Also, now that he’s closer, it’s pretty obvious to Sanzo that the redhead thinks he looks sexy as even with his arm bleeding all over the place and the fact that he’s drunkenly sliding off his chair, he’s obviously trying to flirt with all the women in the vicinity and his leash-holder as well.  
  
“Sha Gojyo? Needs stitches on an arm, a tetanus shot, and a nose reset?” Sanzo leads them to the hallway as they’re swamped with patients and the rooms are all full. “Or did you need those antennae cut off as well?”  
  
“Antenn—!?”  
  
“That’d be him, and I’m Hakkai,” The clear adult of the two says. “Hmm, I suppose they rather do look like antennae, don't they?”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
While the red head’s distracted, Sanzo slides a needle in his arm. Because of course he only insulted the guy for the very professional sake of distraction, and not at all just because he’s spiteful that he’s even here while Tenpou and Kenren take Goku trick-or-treating in the hospital, or that Ukoku’s making him do this, or that this guy is just begging to be goaded into doing something embarrassing. Sanzo is just mature like that.  
  
“Wha—HEY! THAT HURTS.”  
  
“Gojyo . . . indoor voice please.” Hakkai admonishes.  
  
“So, what are you?” Sanzo asks dryly.  
  
“What?” Gojyo asks, confused. Sanzo wonders if he’s always this slow, or just that drunk.  
  
“What insect? A cockroach maybe?”  
  
“YOU BAST—”  
  
“Language~”  
  
Well that was easy. Both to wind this guy up and get the shot over with. Honestly, Sanzo prefers this kind of person because they’re easier to deal with than crying children or needle-nervous hysterical women.  
  
“Hakkai? I thought we were going to a hospital, not to a—a sadistic golden boy!”  
  
“Now, now. Do you _really_ want to insult the person who’ll be stapling your arm?”  
  
Gojyo subsides into grumbles, though he shoots Sanzo glares every few seconds.  
  
Sanzo focuses on cleaning the wound. “Just what did you get cut with?” Because this guy is certainly embarrassing himself. And Sanzo is still professional and trying to distract him, definitely not searching for blackmail material because he’s 1000% certain that there’s an idiotic story behind this one. Nope.  
  
“A stiletto.” Hakkai supplies.  
  
“Why am I not surprised.”  
  
“HEY. I am _very_ popular with the ladies, alright?”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Please don’t encourage him. . . .”  
  
“How was I supposed to know they were lesbians?”  
  
“I bet any woman who sees you coming suddenly finds they’re a lesbian,” Sanzo says.  
  
“WHY Y—OW.”  
  
Sanzo rolls his eyes.  
  
“Now Gojyo, don’t scare the children.”  
  
For all the guy’s complaining, he does stay still (though he looks like he wants to punch Sanzo with his good arm, but that’s nothing new, many patients have expressions like that when Sanzo deals with them) so the staples are quickly inserted in a neat row. Gojyo stares at his arm where there’s still a few streaks of blood.  
  
“I hate the color crimson.” The redhead’s voice is so quiet Sanzo barely hears him. He doubt Hakkai does. Sanzo uses a clean, dry cloth to rub the drying blood off without comment.  
  
“Don’t get it wet for at least a couple days,” Sanzo drones mechanically, “keep it covered with bandages, and there’ll be a prescription for an antibiotic ointment that you should put on each time you change the bandages.”  
  
“Yeah, Yeah, whatever.”  
  
“We’ll be sure to do that, won’t we, Gojyo?”  
  
Gojyo grumbles but gives a nod. Sanzo’s vaguely impressed. Hakkai reminds him a bit of Tenpou, but Tenpou would likely just tie the guy to a chair so Sanzo could stitch up his wounds, then just drag him home still in ropes. Hakkai’s a much better babysitter. Shame, that.  
  
“Come back in seven to eight days to have the staples removed. And make sure to avoid bug spray.” Sanzo walks away to the pleasant background music of Gojyo’s swearing. He’s only disappointed that he couldn’t get the full story from Hakkai.

 

* * *

 

“Sanzo, you’re late!” Goku shouts as soon as he enters. He’s dressed up as a dog or werewolf maybe, with large fluffy clawed paw gloves, large brown dog ears, and a furry brown tail. The kid is obviously sugar high already, an obvious plot written down and carried out by the duo act of Tenpou and Kenren (even Ukoku is cautious of those two when they get their synergy going). Sanzo should have known better when they said they’d take Goku trick-or-treating around the hospital with the other kids. He’d thought that, as people whose jobs were keeping others in good health, they wouldn’t let Goku eat as much candy as he could until he got sick. Stupid of him. After all, they are both off the clock, and not the best models of health anyway, as they both smoke.  
  
“Isn’t Goku adorable?” Koumyou asks. He and Kanzeon go around every year giving candy (or apple cider) to all the holiday prisoners in the hospital. Sanzo idly wonders if he could escape these idiotic events in an actual jail, or if they celebrate there too. Surely though, no one in the prison could look any more gag worthy than Kenren, who is—somehow—worse than that cockroach guy. He’s in _something_ related to a firefighting outfit, as a lizard is related to a dinosaur. The low-cut v-neck shirt is obviously a woman’s, because Sanzo’s never seen a male firefighter costume look anything remotely like that. Then again, the only costumes he generally sees are those in the hospital every year. It is more than skin tight, it basically is Kenren’s skin, and comes with strips of bright yellow reflector material banded on the chest and upper arms, and ridiculous red suspenders attached to a gaudy belt (and he’d thought the skull was bad). And he’d rather be a body in the morgue with Ukoku dripping mustard on him than look anywhere under the waist and above the feet. Speaking of feet . . . was he wearing strappy black heels?  
  
“Doncha know you’re supposed to dress up for this shit, short stuff?” Kenren slurs, bottle of sake in hand and plastic helmet sliding off as he sashays over, somehow able to walk drunk, with heels, and without smashing his face where it belongs—on the floor, with his helmet.  
  
“Can’t you tell that I’m dressed up as a doctor?” Sanzo says, deadpan.  
  
Tenpou hands Sanzo a beer, and Sanzo can’t help but think that white fangs look perfectly natural when paired with his smile. The red and purple toned vest, white shirt (complete with several layers of a flowy cravat and with billowing sleeves), and black pants that Tenpou is wearing seem of much higher quality than the normal Halloween costume. Except for their slightly disheveled state.  
  
“Ohh, gonna suck my blood?” Kenren smirks as Tenpou passes.  
  
Tenpou smiles back and . . . pulls out a scalpel. Hell, what does it say that no one is the least bit surprised?  
  
“No teeth?”  
  
“I prefer getting my hands dirty first.”  
  
“How scary~ Or should I say kinky?”  
  
“Got any garlic?” Sanzo asks Goku dryly as he discards a whole bag of candy into Goku’s lap.  
  
“What? No way, Ten-chan’s the best!”  
  
“. . . I actually need it for Kenren.”  
  
“But he’s not a vampire, Kouryuu.” Koumyou chimes in, head cocked and face puzzled. And Sanzo notices for the first time that his adoptive father is in an angel-nurse mashup, complete with a pink skirt and halo and _sparkles_ , and he literally facepalms. The only reason he is just now processing this occurrence is likely that his brain bleached itself the first time it had to deal with this incoming visual feed. At least he doesn’t have to see Ukoku checking Koumyou out dressed like that (only because Ukoku is still at work, thank fucking whoever). The saddest thing is there isn’t any remote possibility that Koumyou dressed like that due to a bet or blackmail. He might have heard a joke about it and decided it was a good idea though . . . Sanzo needs to kill whoever gave him even a single syllable of this. There is so obviously something seriously wrong with his life.  
  
“Well then you think of something else to keep him away,” Sanzo finally manages to snark. (Right, Kenren. Just focus on that idiot for now. Much simpler.)  
  
“Aww,” Kenren stumbles over and swings an arm around Sanzo’s shoulders, who grits his teeth, “trying to get rid of me already, sourpuss? So cruel.”  
  
Koumyou prances out in his pink heels to continue his rounds and the others play Halloween-themed games and take turns telling scary stories (and Sanzo tries to get himself drunk enough to forget Koumyou’s costume). Well, actually just Kenren and Tenpou take turns. Kenren is good at jump scares and gore, but Tenpou is by far the best, an expert at building up suspense, then releasing it just enough for the next rise in tension to be fully potent. There is a lot of gore in Tenpou’s too, of course. Goku squeals at one point, and scoots over to lean against Sanzo, grabbing his arm in terror, and curling up with a blanket. The only reason Sanzo doesn’t push him away is that he really does look terrified and Sanzo is slightly tipsy (and whereas some drunk people run around hugging or kissing everyone, Sanzo just is more likely not to deck someone for a casual touch to the shoulder or something). Eventually, Goku tires and they leave him clunked out on his bed, with a dorky smile on his face, even in sleep.

 

* * *

 

After Halloween, things go back to their everyday chaos. A few days after Goku finishes his candy (which was not long at all considering how his stomach is apparently a black hole, and that Tenpou, Koumyou, and Kenren were all quite happy to liberate several pieces), he comes to find Sanzo, who’s refilling some supplies.  
  
“Mm, hey, Sanzo, which way is Jikaku’s room again?”  
  
Sanzo stares, his task completely forgotten. Goku’s never had to ask how to get someplace in the hospital before.  
  
“Read the signs, dumbass. His room’s 111.”  
  
Goku mumbles, foot scuffing against the ground.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I _said,_ ” Goku is almost yelling, before his voice softens again, “they’re hard to read. My vision’s blurry.” He looks embarrassed and frustrated.  
  
Sanzo scowls and complains about being busy, but instead of telling Goku what turns to take, he goes with him. It’s just been a while since he’s seen Jikaku.

 

* * *

 

It’s her fourth appointment with the psychologist, and besides that first appointment, it’s the only time Yaone’s let any of them come into the hospital with her. Dokugakuji and Kougaiji get to enter the appointment with her, while Lirin waits in the waiting room. They thought that they brought enough snacks and games to keep Kou’s younger step-sister occupied, but after the appointment (approximately an hour in length), they enter the waiting room and Lirin is completely gone, leaving only empty bags of chips and cookies.  
  
“That—But—I TOLD HER TO STAY PUT!”  
  
Doku and Yaone wince. But as worried as he is for Lirin, Doku sees the small smile Yaone hides and a lot of the worry is replaced by hope and fondness. Then Kou takes off and Doku is back to worry.

 

While Lirin Is Waiting:

It’s only been ten minutes and Lirin is bored, bored, bored! She wishes she hadn’t demanded to come along now. . .well, no. She’s glad she insisted on coming ‘cause Yaone had looked so happy when she said that! But she doesn’t want to sit here and just wait. . . . As long as she’s in the hospital, Kou shouldn’t be _too_ angry . . . That’s it, it’s adventure time!  
  
Lirin sets off through the hallways, arms swinging at her side in full arcs, and each foot taking turns being lifted all the way off the ground and flung into the air before gravity pulls it back down into a brief hug. She hums to herself as she goes, oohing and awing over the artwork that lines the walls. Eventually she comes across one of those outdoor courtyards, and it’s absolutely _full_ of blooming flowers.  
  
“Ohh! Pretty!” Lirin veers and heads outside instead of continuing down the hallways that have now lost any intrigue they had held less than a minute previously. She looks at each type of flower carefully, switching from one to the other. “Hmmm.”  
  
“Hey! Whatcha doin’?”  
  
Lirin glances behind her to see a boy with a wide grin, brown hair, and golden eyes.  
  
“I was tryin’ to decide which one looks best,” she responds cheerfully. “I thought maybe if I could figure out what’s the best, I could get it for mom later on, and that maybe she’d like it.” She gazes at the flowers thoughtfully, eyes a bit sad.  
  
“Oh! Well I’m sure your mom will like whatever you get her.”  
  
Lirin frowns and shakes her head. “Mommy doesn’t like me much.” And now the flowers are a bit blurry. But there’s no way Lirin will cry, not in front of someone she doesn’t really know. Besides, she has Kou and Yaone and Doku!  
  
“Well, what flower do you like best?” He says, crouching down to gaze at the flowers with her.  
  
“Hmm, I can’t decide. What about you?”  
  
“I like them all too, but if I _had_ to choose, it’d be the sunflowers or those ones.” He points at some red ones that have all these thin strands arching out from their centers. “I don’t know what they’re called though. . . .”  
  
“Those are really nice ones!” She gives him her full attention this time with a wide smile. “I’m Lirin. Who are you?”  
  
“I’m Goku! Nice ta meetcha.”  
  
“ _Goku_!” That blonde guy who helped Yaone is standing in the doorway, arms crossed and glowering, just like he was last time. “What the hell are you doing?”  
  
“Does he always scowl like that?” Lirin asked curiously, since Goku apparently knows him.  
  
“Yeah. . .but even though he’s grumpy he’s realllly nice.” In an undertone Goku adds, “Please don’t tell him I said that, he’ll be super angry.”  
  
Lirin grins and holds up her pinky. “Pinky promise!”

 

* * *

 

Kougaiji is walking as quickly as he can through the halls, Yaone and Dokugakuji at his back. He can’t believe he left Lirin like that. He _can_ believe she wandered off. He’s trying to stay calm because Yaone is worried enough and he dislikes causing any of that for her (just as she apparently equally hates causing any for him and Doku?). Dokugakuji is a calming, steady presence, luckily.  
  
“Relax, Kou, I’m sure she didn’t leave the hospital. She’s smarter than that, at least.”  
  
A sullen voice interrupts Dokugakuji’s soothing reasoning, “I believe this is yours.”  
  
Kougaiji whirls to his right and just. . .stares. That grouchy doctor Yaone had, Sanzo something, is standing there with Lirin riding on his shoulders, pulling on his hair, and laughing with some boy who’s holding onto the back of Sanzo’s labcoat.  
  
“Lirin!”  
  
“Oh, hello! You guys _finally_ done then?” She chirps. And Kou is just. So. Mad. But then Yaone starts laughing and he forces himself to take a deep breath and calm down.  
  
“I _told_ you to wait for us.”  
  
“But I did!”  
  
“You know what I—”  
  
“As much as I’m enjoying this, just take her already.” Sanzo grouses.  
  
“Awwww.” Lirin and the other kid pout, Lirin looking pleadingly at her stepbrother as the boy gives Sanzo puppy dog eyes. Dokugakuji chuckles good-naturedly and plucks Lirin off her poor babysitter’s back, transferring her to his own shoulders, which she accepts, overjoyed to still get to ride on someone. “Hey, thanks for babysitting,” he tosses at the doctor-to-be, who scowls at him.  
  
“Saannnzzzzzoooooo,” the boy starts.  
  
“No, Goku.”  
  
“Um,” Yaone steps forward and gives a small wave. “Thank you for before.” Sanzo stares at her, any readable emotion blanked from his expression.  
  
“ ‘che. Don’t let it happen again.”  
  
Kougaiji frowns even while Yaone beams, but the boy interrupts, “That’s Sanzo’s way of saying ‘you’re welcome’ and ‘he’s glad he could help.’ He doesn’t have very good manners! That’s what Tenpou says, at least. Kenren just says he’s a sourpuss.” Lirin giggles. Sanzo rolls his eyes.  
  
“Oh, and who are you?” Yaone says kindly, turning to him immediately.  
  
“I’m Goku!”  
  
“Oh, so you have a brother too?” Dokugakuji asks, curious.  
  
“We’re not brothers.” They say it together but while Goku’s reply is full of good humor and amusement, Sanzo’s is dryer than dried seaweed.  
  
“That’d be so cool though!” Goku continues.  
  
“Why are you here then?” Kougaiji asks, his frown reforming.  
  
“I’m a patient! I live here.” And Goku beams as if that’s the greatest thing in the world. And none of them quite know what to say or do, except Sanzo and Lirin who seem to have no qualms and don’t miss a bit.  
  
“Unfortunately.”  
  
“Yaone! Can I come with you next time to? I wanna hang out with Goku and Sanzo!”  
  
“No.” Sanzo says immediately to her. “You can hang out with him,” a thumb jabs at Goku, “I don’t care, but I am _not_ watching you again.”  
  
Despite the blonde doctor’s lack of any apparent redeeming qualities (despite what the boy Goku says), Kougaiji can’t help but respect, maybe even like him. Kou thinks every word “Sanzo” has said to Yaone has been ill-thought-out and devoid of any empathy, yet he can’t deny the effects he’s seen those words have in Yaone. She still has bad days of course—depression doesn’t just magically ever go away, it’s a lifetime battle—but she’s agreed to try medicine, is attending therapy, and is more willing to talk to Dokugakuji and himself about what she’s thinking. And even if he had nothing to do with it directly, if it weren’t for him, Kou doubts Lirin and Goku would have gotten to hang out at all—since Goku is a ward here, Kou would presume he’s not necessarily able to just go and do what he wants. And Lirin . . . Lirin doesn’t have many friends. As outgoing and energetic as she is, her mom—Kou’s stepmother—isn’t exactly. . .she doesn’t love her daughter or care about her needs. Lirin’s just entering high school, and most of her classmates from elementary and middle school have continued into the same high school as her. Most of them avoid her. Before Kou was old enough to legally take Lirin in, she had to stay at home with a mother who didn’t wash her clothes or let her have friends over (or even go to friends’ houses). After becoming close to Kougaiji and Dokugakuji, Yaone was a godsend—a kind, maternal presence for Lirin that the girl had otherwise never had.  
  
“Of course you can,” Yaone says gently, that soft, radiant pure joy so often lacking in her blooming across her cheeks and lighting her eyes.  
  
“Yessss,” Goku and Lirin exclaim, the boy leaning forward on tiptoes as Lirin reaches down from Doku’s shoulders so they can slap each other’s hands in what sounds like a painful high five. Obviously, they both have high pain tolerance as neither flinch and they continue into some weird secret clapping-handshake.  
  
“Alright, that’s enough, time to go,” Kougaiji tells Lirin, reaching for her.  
  
“Aww,” both kids whine, though they part anyway.  
  
“I’ll see ya soon!” Lirin exclaims as they walk away, waving to Goku in huge motions using both hands and arms. Kougaiji just nods to them.  
  
“It was nice to see you again,” Yaone tells Sanzo politely as she and Dokugakuji follow.  
  
“Hn.”  
  
“Byyyyee~” Goku calls after them. “Ne, Sanzo, I’m hungry. . . .”  
  
“Che.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh-ho, look what we have here.”  
  
Sanzo grits his teeth before turning to Ukoku. He’s already irritable as it is, having been through multiple hallways looking for Goku. “Fuck off.”  
  
“Ah, that’s not very polite.”  
  
Sanzo tries just leaving, but the creepy doctor just walks right next to him. “What do you want?”  
  
Ukoku shrugs. “Actually, I’ve been looking for Koumyou.”  
  
“Your point being. . . ?”  
  
“You’re heading to the children’s wing.”  
  
“Hmph.” He can’t exactly argue with that, though he’s far from happy.  
  
“Besides, it’s like an adventure, just you and me.”  
  
“If by adventure you mean a trip through hell.”  
  
“Hm, if Koumyou’s the moon and I’m the night, who would swallow who?”  
  
A dangerous _kaon_ , Sanzo recognizes. He’s heard Ukoku call Koumyou the moon before. There’s a strain of tension under the question, a string fraying as time passes, ready to snap—a characteristic of most of Ukoku’s speech. For the most part though, he charms his co-workers, despite his odd habits. Few of them recognize the dangerous undertow, and the ones that did, well . . . Tenpou and Kenren having a military background, they’re used to people with a blade lingering under their words and actions. They have their own carefully controlled edges. Kanzeon, for all her humor and surprising willingness to help others, is, like Sanzo a naturally suspicious person. But generally, her search for diversion leads her to watch and occasionally prod at such people. And Koumyou is . . . Koumyou. He has his own unique _Sila_ that simply accepts people and actions that others balk at. His _Upekkha_ lets him observe and interact with others with a sometimes disturbing amount of acceptance and lack of judgment.  
  
“The night exists across the universe, but Earth only has one moon,” Sanzo replies carefully. “Without Koumyou, you just become part of a meaningless night, one that’s the same as everywhere else.”  
  
“But isn’t that what everything becomes,” Ukoku begins, with a dark grin, stopping any forward progress and instead cutting across Sanzo from an angle, “nothing. When you strip the meaning away, when the moon disappears, isn’t that all that’s left?”  
  
Sanzo snorts. “Nothing is a human concept, just like meaning.”  
  
The two stand still, two checkmates in progress, seeing who can take the king first. Well, until Doctor Sharak finds them. She out-stares them both, then tilts her head towards the room she’s come from, and then walks on, completely nonchalant. Taking the king with her as she goes. And even if she didn’t just checkmate them both nonverbally, her small smile as she gestured toward the door would have been enough to get them both to move. Sharak doesn’t hide humor, but she sure as hell doesn’t fake it either. And they could both guess what amused her. With a serious glance, Sanzo and Ukoku call a truce, ensuring their own chances to oogle at the sight inside.  
  
Koumyou is sitting on the floor with two girls braiding his hair, a third painting his nails, and a small boy in his lap. There’s an audience in front of him, all wide eyed children and teens—gasping in a wave and laughing in a rattle, leaning forward when their storyteller’s voice gets softer and rocking backwards when surprised. Ukoku watches with a soft smile, but one that declares he knows something and is plotting, even while being gently amused. Like a cat that is enjoying being pet, but also decides that if you stroke it exactly four more times, it’ll spring on your hand with steely claws.  
  
Sanzo leaves Ukoku by the doorway and after a lingering but casual glance at his adoptive father, marches towards Goku. His lips keep twitching into a smile, but he does his best to discourage them from it. Even if Goku is quite adorable when he’s pretending to be a dragon and is under siege by the swarm of children who don’t want. to. sit. still.  
  
“RRRRrragggHHHrhA,” Goku falls to the floor dramatically, clutching one hand to his heart and flailing all his other limbs out, children trying to catch them and hold him down while giggling. “Your mighty thrust has outdone me!”  
  
“Whose thrust was it?” One girl demands. “Who gave the final blow?”  
  
“Oooohhh, what does it matter?” Goku throws his arm over his eyes. “I have been slain! I care not for who did it.”  
  
A little boy stomps his foot. “No, no, you can’t! We need to know who killed you. They’re the only one who can become king!”  
  
And Sanzo knows it, he knows that Goku is a devious little shit no matter what innocence he, Tenpou, and Kenren claim. That little devil child looks from underneath his sleeve with a truly wicked grin and declares, “Ah, but I will not tell you who the true successor is. For now you must battle for the crown!” He throws himself forward at the last words, grabbing an extra hospital gown and waving it like a flag. And that is the moment that the kids descend to the level of the goddesses fighting over the golden apple—though with a great deal more laughing (despite some tears) and extraordinarily less casualties (though there might be some if the shrieking keeps up while Sanzo is around).  
  
Sanzo and Ukoku were each on a mission to bring their charges back. Neither of them have ever cared for being told what to do. Really, the more important thing anyway is that Ukoku and Sanzo for one moment, are in complete agreement. Isn’t that what Koumyou claimed would make this hospital the best one? Them getting along? In any case, these two assholes weren’t the right ones to send if your aim actually was getting Koumyou or Goku somewhere. At least the room’s battlefield-esque redecoration got done much faster this way.

 

* * *

 

When Mr. Drunken Cowboy with the Stiletto Wound comes back to get his stitches removed, Sanzo (of course) gets to deal with him. Which is extremely annoying, but at least the guy’s easy to rile up.  
  
“I see you’ve finally decided to get those antennae removed,” is Sanzo’s greeting when he opens the door, eyes not even flicking up from the chart in front of him.  
  
“You piece of sh—”  
  
“Language,” comes the cheerfully fanged reminder. Appears the friend is back as well. “Nice to see you again.”  
  
Sanzo looks up from the chart and returns the brunette’s nod. The robotic routine of prep goes quickly enough with these two and soon enough, Sanzo is pulling out stitches from the red-haired cockroach, named Gojyo apparently, while a beaming Hakkai tells him in more detail about the Stiletto Incident. Sanzo is surprised when, despite his griping and threats, Gojyo takes up the story readily and cheerfully enough.  
  
“No, no, no, that’s not how it happened. Jeez.” Gojyo’s hand flops through the air scathingly. Hakkai settles against the back of his chair and rolls a wrist fluidly, signaling for Gojyo to take over, a languid smile in place.  
  
“Weren’t you sloshed?” Sanzo points out as he takes another stitch out.  
  
“Fuck yeah I was. But ya don’t forget a pretty face, even one as sour as yours,” Gojyo proclaims, stabbing an unlit cigarette in Sanzo’s direction, who scowls. He’s always hated when people referred to his looks, especially loathing terms such as “pretty” or “beautiful” being applied to him. Gojyo continues on seemingly without noticing Sanzo’s distemper, “ _especially_ not when they dig a bloody stiletto in yer arm.” Sanzo supposes that _would_ be hard to forget, not that he’s ever had such an experience. “Alright, so yeah, I was fuckin’ smashed. I’m just staring at my arm wondering why the hell it hurts so bad, and she’s jes waving her bloody pink stiletto around and Hakkai’s jes friggin useless—”  
  
“I was a bit in shock, yes. Not everyday you see your friend stabbed with a shoe. I think her partner was as shocked as I was though, we made eye contact and just stared at each other while this was going on.”  
  
Sanzo snorts, amused. Gojyo rolls his eyes at them both and just continues on, forcing Sanzo to clamp down on his wrist as the idiot red head keeps trying to make expansive gestures while Sanzo’s still taking out stitches.  
  
“So the two of them are staring at each other, then, and this lady is swinging her shoe, yelling at me about something or other—”  
  
“Maybe about how you groped her partner?” Sanzo asks dryly.  
  
“And it finally clicks that they’re fucking lesbians and I can’t jes let that lie, can I?” Hakkai sighs, meets Sanzo’s eyes, and shakes his head wearily. “Of course not! Not one, but _two_ smokin’ hot chicks!? I mean, man. So I turn on all the charm—”  
  
“Which clearly isn’t much.” Sanzo intones. Hakkai coughs behind a hand, lips quirked.  
  
“More charm than you,” Gojyo snarks back immediately, “anyway. I’m like, ‘woah, hey, calm down. Now lookya here, le’s all jes get comfortable and have a good snog’ and then she bloody hits me _again_ with that damn stiletto—”  
  
“I would have too.”  
  
“And I finally notice that my arm is actually _bleedin’_ all over the bloody place—”  
  
“He was very drunk.”  
  
“—and I’m jes like holy hell my arm! My fuckin’ arm!”  
  
“But then he holds up a hand,” Hakkai takes over again, “and very seriously says ‘lady, you just cut me with your shoe.’ And she just stares him down and he stares her down for almost a minute and then he says, ‘holy hell that’s gotta be the most shit-crazy turn down _ever_ and no one’s even going to fucking believe me when I tell them about this.’ And she just kind of is like ‘so. . . ?’ (Though I swear her mouth almost quirked into a smile then.) And Gojyo starts laughing like a clown and almost falls over his own feet” (“I did not!”) “as he’s like ‘my God yer crazy’ and he looks at the partner and tells her ‘my fucking God you have a keeper here, any woman crazy enough to assault a guy with a flippin’ shoe to defend yer honor is a goddamn keeper.’ And she smiles at him and then me and says ‘I certainly don’t plan on letting her get away.’”  
  
“An’ thank fuckin’ shit that the chick with the goddamn shoes is smiling now too. I have no bleeping clue what she would’ve done to me if I hadn’t started laughing like a bloody loon and complimenting their damn screwy relationship.”  
  
“It was very sweet,” Hakkai smiles. “Anyway, so then Gojyo ends up just keeling over then and there and the couple is like ‘Oh my God, let us call an ambulance,’ and well . . . that was the end of the Halloween party for us.”  
  
Sanzo shakes his head at them then says to Gojyo, “It’s a wonder you didn’t get yourself killed. If you let me cut off those antennae of yours, maybe people would stop trying to crush you with shoes.”  
  
“Ha ha, yer sooo funny.”  
  
SLAM.  
  
“SANZOOO!”  
  
Sanzo is reasonably sure that all three of them jump when Goku comes bursting in unexpectedly. Gojyo certainly did as his last stitch comes out with an unexpected yank, causing him to give an unmanly yelp.  
  
“Goku! What have I said about barging in here when I’m with patients!” Sanzo snaps immediately, finishing with Gojyo’s arm hurriedly.  
  
“Oh, sorry,” Goku begins sheepishly, turning to them.  
  
“Bloody brat! I could have lost my fucking arm!”  
  
Goku’s eyes roll. “No, you couldna’ of.” Now that he’s looking at the redhead, the boy’s golden-hued eyes widen and he rushes over for a closer look. “Woah, what happened to your arm?”  
  
“Some lady cut him with her stiletto.” Sanzo supplies matter of factly as he cleans up.  
  
“Stiletto? What’s that?”  
  
“it’s a type of shoe,” Hakkai explains patiently with a kind smile.  
  
Goku stares at Gojyo incredulously, “you got cut by a _shoe_!?”  
  
“Hey! They’re fuckin’ sharp shoes, alright!”  
  
Goku bursts out laughing right in Gojyo’s face, which goes an interesting shade of purple.  
  
“What do you want, Goku?” Sanzo interrupts.  
  
“Oh! So Mister Koumyou said I should come get you. He said it’s been awhile since you guys have talked and since he also feels bad for not seeing me in a while, we should sneak out and go get dinner together.”  
  
Sanzo facepalms. Only his adoptive father would blatantly break laws to take a kid out of a hospital for dinner, and not even see anything wrong with that, or any reason to be secretive about it. And only Goku would go shouting about it in front of other patients.  
  
“That sounds nice,” Hakkai says easily, taking it in stride. Goku turns his wide grin on the brunette.  
  
“Mister Koumyou is like suuuuuper nice. He’s kinda weird but he’s the best.”  
  
“He’s the owner of the hospital, correct?”  
  
“Mmhmm! And he’s Sanzo’s adoptive father!”  
  
“Really?” Hakkai looks at Sanzo curiously.  
  
Gojyo snorts, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms behind his head. “Well that explains why tight ass over here is even allowed to work here.”  
  
Sanzo glares. He hates it when people attribute his position at the hospital or his skills only to his father’s name or person. Goku cocks his head though, bemused.  
  
“Whaddya mean?”  
  
“Who else would keep a guy with such terrible bedside manner?”  
  
“I’m sure we can find you a stripper for that,” Sanzo growls, “but if you want goddamn medical work, you’ll just have to take it, nice bedside manner or not.”  
  
“But. . .everyone in this hospital is weird.” Goku interrupts. “Like, Ukoku is kinda scary and apathetic and like, while go caress the corpses in the morgue that are waiting to be shipped out. An’ Tenpou if super scary too and isn’t above blackmail or even like digging his thumb into a cut if the patient’s pissing him off, though he’s pretty calm so ya needa be a real ass.”  
  
Gojyo turns to Hakkai slowly, “outta all the goddamn hospitals you coulda brought me to, you chose this.”  
  
“It was the closest. Besides, I’m sure as long as you behave, you won’t ever have any problems.” Hakkai responds, shooting Gojyo a surprisingly cold look.  
  
“Anyway, squirt, doncha have dinner to go ta or something?’ Gojyo asks.  
  
“OH YEAH!” Goku pivots, energy pulsating off of him, making the air around him appear to quiver. “Sanzo! Hurrrryyyy, I’m hunnnngrrry.”  
  
Sanzo rolls his eyes, “when aren’t you?” Despite the grumble though, he finishes up and sends a text to Kanzeon and Tenpou, letting them know he’s heading out. Technically, his shift ended with this last idiot. Still, it was always better to let them know, just in case something had come up.  
  
“It was nice meeting you, Goku,” Hakkai says politely as he and Gojyo stand up.  
  
“Yeah!” Goku’s eyes turn toward the other brunette, excitement and happiness gleaming from them. “You should come visit sometime.”  
  
Gojyo stills, halfway into his brown bomber jacket.  
  
He and Hakkai trade looks. “Whaddya mean kid?”  
  
“I’m a patient here. Room 220.” He flips his attention back to Sanzo, as Gojyo and Hakkai meet eyes again. “Sanzoooo, hurry.”  
  
Sanzo’s narrowed gaze is on Hakkai and Gojyo. He’s getting really annoyed by people’s reactions to learning Goku’s a patient here. So many people just assume younger people don’t have any serious health complications, even in a hospital. More than that annoying tendency though, when they do find out they always look so pitying. Sanzo’s always hated it when pity’s directed at him—like when people found out his birth parents had abandoned and he’d been found living on the streets and brought into the hospital for severe dehydration, exposure, and starvation. He’s never felt like that deserved pity. Sanzo just wasn’t expecting to react just as vehemently when he sees such pity directed at Goku as when it’s directed toward himself.  
  
“Well, I am taking a cooking class, and I always end up with all this extra food that I don’t know what to do with,” Hakkai muses out loud. He looks over at Sanzo. “Are visitors allowed to bring food for patients?”  
  
Sanzo’s lip curls briefly. He doesn’t particularly want people to visit Goku just because he’s some poor little sick boy. Goku though bounces over excitedly.  
  
“Oh my God, really!? You’d bring me some!?”  
  
Sanzo sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, letting his eyes drift closed briefly. “Yes, you can bring him food, within reason, of course.”  
  
Hakkai nods sagely. “I value health, so I make mainly healthy dishes.” Gojyo snorts and grumbles “health fanatic” under his breath. Hakkai elbows him as he continues. “Of course I will make sure it is deemed suitable by the attending.”  
  
“Wow, yer a super nice guy, Hakkai!” Goku gushes. Hakkai smile looks a little sad, Sanzo observes. Not because of Goku. He’d already reacted to finding out about that. No, this appeared to be tied to the comment about him being nice. Interesting.  
  
“Heh, careful, kid. He can be super mean too.” Gojyo interjects.  
  
Goku just blinks. “Mosta the people who are real nice are kinda scary too,” he says like it’s an obvious rule of the world: that shitty assholery and genuine kindness always come paired. “Anyway, we gotta go!”  
  
“Ah, yes, don’t let us keep you. We’ll see you later. Thanks again, Sanzo,” Hakkai adds, giving a short bow to the doctor-in-training.  
  
“Hnn, next time we should take care of the antennae.” Once again, Sanzo walks away to the redhead shouting insults, though this time he can clearly hear Hakkai chuckling and Goku is walking at his side, arms crossed behind his head and each footstep going from heel to the very tip-toe, jouncing joyfully.  
  
“Ne, Sanzo, why do ya think people always act like that? They don’ even know what I have.”  
  
“ ‘tch. They’re just idiots is all.”  
  
“Hmm. Maybe it’s cause it’s scary.”  
  
Sanzo’s eyes draw toward the kid instantly, brows tightening. “What?”  
  
“Well, everyone hates being sick so like, maybe the idea of a kid bein’ reaaal sick reminds them that it can happen to anyone and that scares them.”  
  
Sanzo considers this. It’s a decent theory, actually. It’s another one of those rare crystallizing insights of Goku’s. Even so, he’s not particularly inclined to let that lessen his disdain for such reactions. Personally, he thinks it’s good for people to be reminded of these things—those parts of life that are cruel or ugly. Those who ignore, hate, or try to deny _Dukkha_ , _Kilesa_ , and even death are people who have trouble with _Vipassana_ and achieving _Sankhara_. They stay ignorant and arrogant, trying to hide from what will always be a part of any reality they create for themselves. Sanzo has never had much patience for individuals like that. Though it’s not like he has all that much patience for people in general. Goku is one of those who possesses Vicaya that leads to him acknowledging and exploring those aspects of humanity and life that others have an aversion toward. Despite all those people who publically discuss life, death, and humanity, Goku is one of those rare few that seem to experience all of reality—rather than investigating its shadows through the distance of a theoretical framework while avoiding the actual truth of it. Of course, Goku can also find _Metta_ and _Mudita_ in everyday occurrences. Koumyou identifies it just as easily and simply. Sanzo is more adept at recognizing the _Kilesa_ in others. Koumyou can often dismiss it, for better or worse. Sanzo’s not sure Goku notices it.  
  
“Even though sometimes I hate it, I prefer that than when people are scared of me,” Goku admits, interrupting Sanzo’s mental processing and redirecting it. Goku has a brain tumor, why exactly would people be afraid of him? Unless . . . he was friends with Nataku. Perhaps he’d met that person Kenren mentioned, who was scared of Nataku despite the fact that the boy’s illness wasn’t contagious.  
  
“Goku, Kouryuu!” Koumyou waves at them gracefully. And Goku practically runs him down, both physically and verbally—demanding where they’re going for dinner. Koumyou looks at Sanzo over Goku’s head, as knowingly as always. And it’s easy to let go and focus on the current when he’s surrounded by Goku’s loud, obnoxious voice and Koumyou’s calm presence.

 

* * *

 

Hakkai does indeed bring Goku food, as well as mahjong. Apparently he also called and asked Kanzeon when Sanzo got off work and might be in Goku’s room. Even the cockroach comes along, with a six-pack, which definitely has not been cleared by the hospital (or Hakkai considering the affronted look he shoots at it when Gojyo pulls it out of a plastic bag).  
  
Upon seeing Sanzo eyeing the beer, Gojyo smirks and works one out to toss to the blonde. “Consider that your bribe.”  
  
“One beer isn’t enough to buy my silence,” Sanzo informs him, as he studies the redhead’s new hair cut.  
  
“Like it?” Gojyo grins at him.  
  
“Did you cut it just because you don’t like the color?” Sanzo asks pointedly, ignoring the idiocy that follows this guy like a fucking odour. “It would have been easier to just dye it,” he contemplates. “In the end though, you’ll always know it’s red, so you can’t run from it.”  
  
Hakkai looks between them, eyebrows brought close together in mutual confusion. Goku ignores everything that’s not food. Gojyo’s smile falters a bit.  
  
“Whatever, man, do ya like it or not?”  
  
“Better than your last one, not that that says much.”  
  
“Alright! Back to regrowing it in that case,” the redhead crows. Sanzo steals the rest of the beer in retaliation.  
  
“Sanzo, would you like tea?” Hakkai holds up a kettle, that he apparently brought along as well. “I know Gojyo doesn’t like tea, and Goku just told me he doesn’t either,” Goku makes a face at that, “but I brought enough to share.”  
  
“What kind?” Sanzo asks somewhat warily. He only drinks green tea and has no clue why the hell anyone would bring a kettle and teapot to a hospital, and doubts anyone would bring good tea with them if they _did_ do such a weird thing.  
  
“Loose leaf Sencha?”  
  
Apparently Hakkai is just odd enough to do so. But Sanzo so rarely gets time to drink tea (mostly being at school or the hospital these days, and only using the house to sleep), that he’s actually quite pleased. Of course, all he vocalizes is a tart  
“If you make enough, I’ll drink it,” accompanied by a shrug and the crinkle of a newspaper being shook open.  
  
Hakkai just chuckles, “I’ll make sure to make enough then.”  
  
When Goku and Gojyo have eaten their fill (they had a dumbass eating competition—Goku won of course) and stopped kicking each other in the face and stealing from everyone’s plates, Hakkai sets up mahjong.

 

From that point on, it becomes a weekly thing to play mahjong and eat together. They never express pity for Goku again, even when he’s too weak to wrestle with Gojyo or doesn’t eat much. Whether they’re in it for the long haul or not, Sanzo doesn’t particularly care. He’s just not going to throw them out on their asses. Not yet, at least.

 

* * *

 

The hospital isn’t open yet, though of course that’s a relative term when applied to medical or emergency needs. There is always activity in a hospital, and yet perhaps that’s why at non public hours, while one is staying overnight or at odd hours for a friend or relative in emergency, there’s a sense of distortion. There’s activity yet it’s quiet and removed until it’s noisy and right there disturbing you and the patient as information is collected, bags are filled or drained, shots are given. . . . Everyday life is put on hold, all that one thought was important and urgent suddenly lose meaning. You don’t have the energy or concern to pay them any mind. Compounded with the powerful cocktail of uncertainty and fear and helplessness, there is a feeling of unreality—something you both want to tear apart, and yet desperately need to hold onto. A hospital is draining, even for those who work there. People may expect them to get used to death and pain, yet nurses and doctors over time make connections to patients and relatives as well. Death is never easy. Especially when you’re the one taking care of someone. Especially when you take care of them and do everything possible, and yet it isn’t enough, because you can only comprehend, control, and influence the natural world so much—even with all the advanced equipment and knowledge.  
  
It is such experience that drives researchers and doctors, relatives of patients and the patients themselves to all do more. To research and ask questions, to raise money and vie for attention (in a world where increased knowledge and communication also means there are so many things demanding some bit of attention every second). And yet, when one’s a doctor—especially perhaps, with experience in ER or morgue—one also sees humanity’s potential for cruelty and destruction, just as well as nature. Morality and ethics, Koumyou has found, are challenged and reformed every day for him. Perhaps this is why this is the longest profession Ukoku and Kanzeon have stayed in. Ukoku is too intelligent, learning too much and obsessing until it lacks meaning and interest. Kanzeon is bored so easily as well, impatient with the conventional, trivial, and mundane. This setting is convoluted and there are always questions—an “atypical symptom,” an “atypical disease,” an “a-we’ve-never-seen-this-and-have-no-fucking-clue-what-it-means-or-how-it’ll-respond-or-even-what-to-do-typical.”  
  
And complications are not limited to the realm of the hospital. It can seep into the legal. More than that, it can trickle into the doctor’s or nurse’s or cafe worker’s everyday life, changing the coded pathways of their thinking and the color of the lens they use to view the world. For Ukoku, things have lost meaning: “everything becomes nothing in the end.” For Koumyou . . . that way of thinking is too simple. It’s an answer that’s restricted and doesn’t encourage challenges or investigation. For a man as intelligent as Ukoku, Koumyou wonders why he restrains himself in such a way. He has theories of course.  
  
Koumyou likes people. Always has, always will. Nature in general is fascinating in how it creates, but then defies, expectations and conventions. But it is people that Koumyou is primarily drawn to. People he can directly influence, and who can influence him, through one simple meaning. Well, nature can do so too. . . .  
  
“ _Koumyou_.” Koumyou blinks, then looks around. Ukoku is standing in front of him. Once the doctor sees the other is paying attention, he shakes his head in large sweeping motions with a sigh, though his usual smirk is in place. “My, my, if you zone out like that, one of these days someone will take advantage.”  
  
“Haha, I wouldn’t mind if they wanted to steal something from my office.” Koumyou glances around at the piles of paper and scattered writing utensils. “Though I don’t really think there’s anything to steal here. . . .”  
  
“That’s . . . really not what I meant.”  
  
“Oh, but why are you here?”  
  
“Really? Did you forget already? We have a meeting.”  
  
“Ah, that’s right.” Koumyou looks up, as if to find a note for himself on the ceiling reminding him of the meeting. “That’s not what I meant though. Haven’t you gotten bored here yet?”  
  
Ukoku shrugs and leans against the desk. “Didn’t you say that if I found everything boring, I must be a boring person?”  
  
“Ah, did I?”  
  
Ukoku laughs, not his usual chuckle, but a real laugh—slightly wild though it may sound. “You, you really are—” He runs a hand through his dark hair. “In any case, I thought I’d stick around. Try to become less boring.”  
  
Koumyou hummed a that, a finger tapping on his chin. “Well, I’d say, Kenyu, that you’re still pretty boring, haha.”  
  
“May I ask what your criteria are?”  
  
“Mm, well, you’re pretty predictable, aren’t you?”  
  
“So what, you want me to suddenly snap and slaughter your patients?” Ukoku’s smile is dark, tinged with amusement, but lacking something—though it is impossible to say just what. Perhaps, Koumyou thinks, it is that Ukoku has mistaken Ego for Self. Of course, it could just be _Kilesa_ , something that is prevalent in Ukoku, obscuring his _Panna_.  
  
“Ah, but that’s still pretty predictable, isn’t it?”  
  
“Only you would say something like that is predictable.”  
  
“Haha, you’re right.”  
  
Ukoku frowns and sits on top of the desk. “What exactly is unpredictable then? I’d say everyone here is pretty predictable.”  
  
“Really? Hmm.” Koumyou examines Ukoku, head cocked. “Well, I never know what Kanzeon is going to bet on next, or what strange situation nir’ll cause. Or how Jikaku will sneak in another pack of cigarettes. Or what trouble Goku will cause when he leaves his room—he also gets caught in absurd situations! Tenpou and Kenren are always plotting something or other, but are so secretive I hardly ever know what’s going on.” Koumyou seems a bit put out at that. “And well . . . I wonder how Kouryuu will grow.”  
  
Ukoku snorts. “None of that is unpredictable.”  
  
“Hmm, isn’t it? I don’t think it’s the big things. In general I know what will happen, but never the details—and those are what’s exciting, aren’t they? Like, we know we’ll give someone stitches, but that redhead Goku and Kouryuu are friends with needed stitches because he was stabbed with a shoe! Did you really predict that?”  
  
Ukoku blinks a few times. “I suppose not.” He looks down and toys with a pen, a thoughtful frown in place.  
  
“And this meeting, do you know what it’s about?”  
  
“Yes, in general.”  
  
“Ah, but you don’t know what anyone will say, exactly, now will you?”  
  
Ukoku laughs as he meets Koumyou’s eyes. “Well, guess I need to stick around then still. Look at these small details of yours.”  
  
Koumyou smiles back, eyes crinkling. Suddenly though, his expression shifts into bemusement. “Ne, what time did I make this meeting for?”  
  
Ukoku sighs again. But before he can answer, the door opens. And Tenpou strolls in, holding a file under his arm, Kenren following, arms crossed leisurely behind his head.  
  
“Ah, no Kanzeon yet? I suppose we’ll wait.” Tenpou remarks, as he and Kenren pull up chairs. Of course, coincidence that it is, the door opens right at that moment and Kanzeon walks in, dressed in a see through flowing white skirt and billowy white shirt that one can clearly see nir bra under. Of course, it doesn’t really matter as ne isn’t on duty and would wear a uniform when ne is. Still, it takes everyone a moment to adjust—having been used to seeing nir dressed for the job.  
  
“Is it really necessary for me to be here?” Kanzeon complains, dropping, somehow quite gracefully, into a chair Kenren pulls up for nir. Ne sets an elbow on the armrest, head tilted against nir closed fist.  
  
“Oh, I think you’ll quite enjoy this meeting,” Tenpou remarks. Kanzeon’s eyebrow arches, as ne looks between the four men in the room. Koumyou shrugs and Kanzeon stares at him, eyes wide, before bursting into laughter.  
  
“You call a meeting without even knowing what it’s about?”  
  
“Mm, but Tenpou said it was important?”  
  
Ukoku shifts on the desk, eyes intent behind his glasses. Kenren’s mouth tightens, his eyes humorless. Tenpou nods, face equally as grim, and hands Koumyou the file he was carrying.  
“We’ve been looking into Nataku’s uncle, Li Touten,” Kenren supplies.  
  
Kanzeon abandons nir casual slouch and straightens, suddenly sternly regal as ne stares down Kenren and Tenpou, silently demanding they continue, immediately. Koumyou flips through the paper,s, brow furrowed as he scans the documents. He lets the folder of papers fall closed and leans back, arms crossed, hands tucked in his labcoat sleeves, as he waits for them to continue.  
  
“And boy did we find a lotta rot.”

 

* * *

 

Gojyo and Hakkai have different work schedules, so it’s not surprising when one week they can’t visit Goku together. Still, Hakkai finds it a bit odd to be entering the hospital on his own. The last time he’d been in a hospital before taking Gojyo to ER on Halloween was . . . well. Sorrow wells up as Hakkai remembers his sister’s soft smile and straight spine. But he pushes them aside. He always set aside time to think of her, to remember, but now was not the time. He’d get depressed and that would make Goku sad as well. Unconsciously, Hakkai’s footsteps quickened as he reached the corner where he turned into Goku’s hallway. . . .  
  
. . . and he bumped right into a young woman. In the impact, Hakkai jostled her arm and the papers and notebook she had been holding tumbled to the floor.  
  
“Oh!” she exclaims. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes before dropping into a crouch to collect her things. Immediately Hakkai lowers himself to the floor to help.  
  
“Ah, I was the one who turned the corner so sharply.” Hakkai remarks as he hands her the papers, noticing one was the printout you received at the end of an appointment.  
  
“Thank you.” She stood first. “I’m Yaone,” she offers, along with an extended hand and soft smile.  
  
“Hakkai. It’s nice to meet you, though I would have rather not done so by crashing into you.”  
  
She giggles. “Shouldn’t you be rushing to an appointment? Since you were in such a hurry?”  
  
“Ah, no. I’m just here to visit a friend.”  
  
“They must appreciate that very much.”  
  
Hakkai smiles. “He definitely does, and I appreciate his company as well.  
  
“Well, maybe I’ll bump into you again sometime.”  
  
“Let’s aim for the figurative rather than the literal next time.”  
  
Yaone giggles again. “Indeed.” They separate, though she looks back once to send him a wave and as he had been watching her go, Hakkai returns it with a smile. It is easier to smile for Goku after that when Hakkai enters the boy’s room.

 

* * *

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be in therapy right now?” Sanzo asks without lifting his eyes from his textbook, glasses at the end of his nose, cheek resting against a loose fist. He’s seated next to the window, book propped up on a knee. His inquiry enters silence, and provokes no returning sound. “Goku?” Sanzo glances up, eyebrows drawn toward each other sternly though his gaze is incisive. Goku walks to his bed and flops down face-first, face making fast friends with the pillow.  
  
“I coodnt duuit.”  
  
“. . . what?”  
  
Goku lifts up just enough to free his mouth, “I couldn’t do it.”  
  
“Do what?” Sanzo frowns, takes off his glasses, and leaves a finger in the book to mark his place as he lets the covers drift closed.  
  
“The exercises.”  
  
When Sanzo doesn’t say anything, Goku’s head lifts and seeks him out. Sanzo waits. Goku’s head drops back to the pillow, though this time it’s resting so Goku’s eyes stay on Sanzo. “I got really tired, so we stopped.”  
  
Sanzo considers this. Sometimes Kenren has Goku do more exercises when they have time to use the equipment after Goku’s session officially ends, but Goku came back way earlier than he should have. “How far, exactly, did you get?”  
  
Goku’s gaze shifts to the study of bedspreads. “I dunno . . . over half. . . .”  
  
The lines of Sanzo’s face tighten, his frown becoming more pronounced. “So you got halfway then what, stopped because you got tired?”  
  
Goku’s face moves back into the embrace of the pillow. “Yesshhf.”  
  
Sanzo drops the book onto the windowsill, abandoning whatever stupid shit he’s supposed to be studying, and comes to loom over Goku instead. “And Kenren _let_ you?” He demands sourly.  
  
Goku doesn’t reply. Which is answer enough. That damn man. . . . Kenren is usually excellent at what he does, but Goku’s been slacking more and more.  
  
“Get up.”  
  
Wide eyes peer up at him in surprise. “Wha—”  
  
“Get up,” Sanzo repeats. Goku sits up slowly, eyebrows drawing close to each other to consult. “We’re going to go finish your routine,” Sanzo informs him. Goku’s face immediately tightens.  
  
“I _told_ ya, I couldn’t do it. I got all weak an’ stuff.”  
  
“You,” Sanzo corrects automatically before moving on to the more important aspect, “that’s what therapy’s _for_ , monkeybrain.”  
  
“I’m not a monkey,” Goku snaps back immediately. “but we’re doing the same stuff an’ it’s _harder_ than it used to be.”  
  
Sanzo is unfazed, “Just because it was easy before doesn’t mean you can slack off when it starts getting hard.”  
  
“I’m not slackin’!” Goku replies heatedly.  
  
Sanzo sighs. This isn’t going anywhere. He usually doesn’t do such things but well, if Koumyou, Tenpou, _and_ Kenren do it, surely he can do something equally as childish. . . . “I’ll take you to the cafeteria for a meat bun afterwards.”  
  
Goku’s face brightens. “Really?” Sanzo realizes it’s been awhile since he, or anyone else, has had time to take Goku there. Of course he doesn’t talk about that, but just sends the kid an eyeroll.  
  
“I said so, didn’t I?” Sanzo tosses over his shoulder as he leaves the room.  
  
“Hey, wait! I’m coming, I’m coming!”

 

Sanzo can’t lie to himself about the fear gnawing his organs as he watches Goku struggle through exercises he’d blazed through before, taking almost twice as long at each rep as he used to. Still, he’s fighting. Frustrated though he is, Goku grits his teeth and works harder, managing to get through it all. Kenren watches them carefully from where he’s working with another patient. After a nod of acknowledgment to Sanzo, Kenren leaves them alone, just looking over periodically (as in every few breaths) to check on them. When Goku finishes, the older man shoots him a grin and congratulates him.  
  
“Oi, you should have a reward for getting through all that!”  
  
Sanzo scowls as Kenren shoots him a smirk, eyes twinkling mischievously.  
  
“Sanzo’s taking me to get a meat bun!” Goku exclaims, all excitement despite the sweat pouring off of him and his heavy breathing.  
  
“Oh, is he?”  
  
“Only if he hurries and cleans up,” Sanzo breaks in. Goku immediately runs off to get a towel to dry his face with. Sanzo and Kenren watch each other with perspicacious eyes before Kenren turns to his next patient. Goku slides to a stop in front of Sanzo, his beam all the brighter set against excursion-red cheeks.  
  
“Bye Ken-nii!”  
  
Goku is tired the rest of the day, but his eyes gleam with the confidence and joy of accomplishment—with _Saddha_ free from _Vicikiccha_.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, Goku still gets lonely. Everyone has jobs, and he can’ interrupt important appointments, so even though he has friends in the hospital, they’re often unavailable. He likes visiting other patients, but honestly, that can get depressing after a while. Plus, sometimes he is too tired. Like everything takes so much energy. But he doesn’t like staying in his room unless someone else is there with him. At a previous hospital, Goku wasn’t allowed to leave his room, and they weren’t above locking it after he left one too many times. His guardians hadn’t cared much, but then they died and he came to Koumyou’s hospital. Goku quickly found out that even if anyone complains about Goku leaving, they’ll never lock him up or use force. Koumyou told him that is illegal, apparently. Still, Goku feels uneasy staying in his room for too long if no one’s there to take his mind off the memories, so despite the trouble it causes everyone, he still wanders out to look at flowers and hang out in his favorite courtyard. Today is one of those days. Or so he’d thought.  
  
Goku looks up to see Kanzeon sidling into his favorite courtyard—the one with sunflowers and those red flowers prominent in the beds, and with a sakura tree in the center—with a wink at him and nir index finger held to nir lips.  
  
“KANZEON, THIS IS NOT PROFESSIONAL.” Jiroushin’s voice comes through an open window. Kanzeon covers nirs mouth with a hand, forcing nir laughter to wait. They hear nir coworker stomp away and ne and Goku look at each other. Kanzeon snorts and starts laughing.  
  
“Did you sneak out of a meeting again?” Goku questions, trying to mimic Hakkai’s admonishing tone, but his smile was too wide and knowing for it to really work.  
  
Kanzeon bats nir hand through the air, swatting such mundane concerns away from nir. “I’ve been in meetings all day and it’s all budget this and budget that, it’s _boring_.”  
  
“Aren’t they important though?”  
  
Kanzeon snorts in disdain rather than amusement this time. For such a graceful and collected person, ne has quite the image shattering collection of noises. Anyone who sticks around soon learns how eccentric ne is anyway. “I don’t see why I have to be there. Even if I make suggestions, it’s not like anyone’s going to take me up on them. Too bad though, I really thought throwing a hospital wide party would be an amusing diversion. And the kids here would so love piñatas. Even Sanzo would have fun beating the stuffing out of the Ukoku one I had designed.” Ne settles into the grass, lying on nir side, head propped up by an arm. “Anyway, it’s not like anyone cares if I drop out besides Jiroushin, the nag.” Kanzeon holds nir other hand out and studies nir nails. “If I could bring some sake in or something, it wouldn’t be so bad. Anyway, whatcha up—”  
  
_Creak.  
_  
A window opens and Koumyou hops out then ducks behind a bush as Goku and Kanzeon watch bemusedly. A second later, Kanzeon gets with the script and leaps up to duck behind the same bush. A few minutes later, some doctors and nurses skid to a stop outside the door leading to the courtyard and look around suspiciously. “Goku, have you seen Koumyou?” One of them questions.  
  
“Or Kanzeon,” someone else mutters.  
  
“Uhhh, nope! Sorry.”  
  
“You sure?” The first speaker inquires, suspicious.  
  
“Um.”  
  
Another doctor rushes in, “Koumyou’s been sighted! He’s heading to Goku’s room!” Abruptly, the group rushes back out.  
  
“Psst, Goku.” Goku looks over to see Kanzeon peeking around the bush at him, a leafy branch held in front of nir face. Probably to keep her camouflaged. It’s not very effective, Goku observes.

“Are they gone for sure?”  
  
“Looks like.” Goku glances back, just to make sure. Kanzeon drops the branch and stands up, then dusts nemself off, dislodging leaves and twigs.  
  
“Whew. What were you thinking, bringing them here?” Kanzeon demands, hands on nir hips. Koumyou’s head pops up behind the bush, twigs sticking out every which way.  
  
“Ah, but I set up a distraction,” he points out, finger held aloft proudly.  
  
“How’d you manage that anyway?”  
  
“Ah I—” Koumyou stops and cocks his head. There’s a moment of confusion, before his face clears and he looks at them again. “Oh, right, I forgot. Hello!”  
  
Despite their familiarity with Koumyou’s outré behavior, the present company stares, mouths hanging slightly open. Kanzeon, of course, regains nir composure first. “I think we’re a little past that!” From anyone else, it’d likely sound scolding or irritated, from Kanzeon, though, there’s just a wry humor. For all that everyone (meaning Jiroushin and Sanzo) complain that ne doesn’t do nir work or take anything seriously, Kanzeon’s humor and tendency to become bored makes ne like a _Bodhisattva_ in Goku’s opinion. Well, from what he’s heard Sanzo say of Buddhist terms, anyway. In going around looking for something to interest nir, Kanzeon tends to get into a lot of interesting situations that few others do, and often seems to end up in situations where ne helps out others. Ne also has a lot of pose and attitude, and is well, kind of intimidating. Besides, from what he knows of _nirvana_ , ne’d be bored out of nir mind.  
  
“Oh.” Koumyou ponders, bringing Goku’s attention back to the other courtyard visitor. “We are?”  
  
Kanzeon’s whole body participates in nir sigh, fulling expressing nir amused dismay. Koumyou, still in a squat, waddles over to Goku and glances down at the picture Goku had been drawing before his unexpected visitors arrived. “Ah, is that Kouryuu?”  
  
“Mmhmm, an’ Tenpou an’ Kenren,” Goku points each figure out. “I’m trying to fit all my friends on a page, so I can look at this whenever I’m feeling down, and remember how many I have.” Kanzeon comes over and Goku tilts it so ne can see.  
  
“Aw, that’s adorable. Look how grumpy Genjo is! You’ve captured him perfectly.”  
  
Koumyou picks up the picture, holding it delicately by the corners. “Ah, it really is realistic.” He smiles at Goku and hands it back. “Will you draw me?”  
  
“Of course, you’re one of my friends.” Kanzeon’s looks between Koumyou and Goku, before nir eyes settle on the younger. Wordlessly, ne points a finger at nemself, eyebrows raised. “And you!” Ne grins, wide and bright and plops nemself back down.  
  
“Can I have a sheet of paper? I’ve never drawn before.”  
  
“Really!? Who hasn’t _drawn_ before?” Goku immediately grabs a couple sheet of paper and an extra pencil and hands them to nir. Goku turns to Koumyou, proffering a stack of orange paper and pencil. “Would you like to draw too?”  
  
Koumyou frowns, almost sulkily. “I can only draw stick figures.” And his tone is definitely mournful. Still, he takes the paper. “But this orange will look beautiful against the blue sky,” he muses as deft hands immediately begin folding a paper airplane.

 

Fifteen minutes later, Koumyou has twigs and leaves in his hair, white lab coat caked in mud, throwing another orange airplane to fly through the sky joyfully, before spinning back down to land in the bush, or the flowers, or in—on one history-worthy occasion—Kanzeon’s ear. There are hints of orange poking out from everywhere by this point. Kanzeon is sprawled out, sharklike grin in place as ne made bets with Koumyou about where the next airplane would land, holding onto a beer ne had procured mysteriously. Ne’d abandoned nir attempts at drawing in disgust and wheedled Goku into taking a break from his own picture to draw nir something. He sketches a few flowers for nir, the red spiky ones he likes so much (Red Spider Lilies, Koumyou had told him) intermingled with daisies. Kanzeon seems over-dramatic as ne gushes over it, but the way ne holds it so carefully belies honesty. Goku returns to his own picture, which he has just started coloring.  
  
“It’s finished!” Goku announces, holding up the drawing. Kanzeon takes the paper gently from him so ne can better examine it, Koumyou crowding in next to nir. “I always thought Nataku’s hair was like those red spider lilies,” Goku starts telling them, when he realizes that unlike their previous reactions on seeing his work, both adults are silent with serious expressions. At first he thinks it’s because they don’t like how he drew them, but unease uncurls in Goku’s stomach and reaches up through his chest in spidery veins, as he realizes that something like that wouldn’t make either adult look this way. “What’s wrong?” Goku finally demands when neither of them move or speak. The two share a look.  
  
Kanzeon hands him back the picture carefully.  
  
“We’ve been working on the case with Nataku’s uncle, Li Touten.” Koumyou tells Goku, the very essence of _Karuna_ in his voice.  
  
The vines of unease shrivel up and die, but instead of bringing relief, they just leave him feeling hollow. “Oh.” Nataku. Goku still thinks about him almost every day and the hurt is stronger than he can bear each time. When Goku was brought to the hospital and left there, he was scared and lonely, but Nataku snuck into his room one night, hiding from the nurses. He showed Goku this specific courtyard and was always sneaking out to play pranks, eyes alive and smile buoyant. Unless his uncle came.  
  
Then Nataku would look like he never breathed, all rigidly precise movements or complete stillness, eyes as sentient as the paint used to mimic life in a doll’s eyes. As if all color drained away, shadows and light blending together into an all-prevailing oppressive grey. Of course, his uncle would never come near, but watch from across a room, obsessively cleaning his hands with hand sanitizer and only acknowledging his nephew by shooting out questions, which he expected to be answered immediately. Goku knows that Nataku’s uncle has been trying to discredit Koumyou and the hospital, demanding a scandalous amount of money for their “failings.” “So. . . .” The words trail off, leaving their path and becoming hopelessly lost. He’s not quite sure where they were even heading.  
  
“We’ve won the lawsuit,” Kanzeon says in a return to nir reticent standard, when ne is not amused by something, this characteristic becomes prominent. It’s always a bit startling for Goku when he sees this, as ne is almost always full of joyful, mischievous humor when Goku sees nir.  
  
“More importantly,” Koumyou says, “We found out that Nataku had just turned 18 and had a will made, and his wishes are being honored. One of those wishes is that he be buried in this courtyard.” Koumyou paused, but Goku couldn’t find any of the words he’d lost. “He wrote that this place was where he was happiest, and where he finally had friends, even a best friend.”  
  
A tickling burn is starting in Goku’s eyes, but he tightens his jaw and makes any tears wait. Not yet. “Nataku . . . he never had friends before here?”  
  
Kanzeon is grim, “Apparently not. Li Touten didn’t let him leave the house much.” Ne doesn’t say anything about the living conditions Nataku was in. Or about how he contracted his disease by stepping on a used syringe that was in the house, accidentally left by a customer from Li Touten’s ring of drug dealing.  
  
“Goku,” Koumyou asks, waiting for Goku to meet his eyes, and the _Panna_ in them. “We agreed that this is, essentially, your courtyard. Will it be alright if we bury him here?”  
  
Goku opens his mouth, but can’t bring himself to say anything. He knows that if he does, the tears will come, and he doesn’t want them yet. He nods instead.  
  
“Nataku left a letter for you,” Koumyou adds, pulling out a creased envelope from his robes. Distantly, Goku wonders if Koumyou actually came here with this in mind. His fingers are shaking and have no feeling in them when he reaches for the envelope, cradling it carefully in his hands. He can’t bring himself to open it. Not in daytime and with other people. Nataku liked the night, so Goku would wait till then, no matter how silly that may seem.  
  
Kanzeon pulls him into a fierce hug, and it takes a long time for Goku to pull away. Koumyou is looking at the picture again.  
  
“It really is gorgeous,” Kanzeon says. “We should buy a frame for it and hang it up in your room.”  
  
“R-really?” Goku asks, surprised. Ne grins at him.  
  
“That’s a good idea,” Koumyou agrees. He’s about to add something when a breeze spirals in, caught briefly in the enclosed space, and bringing a paper plane sortie with it. The colorful orange swarm descends on Koumyou and Goku can’t help the laughter that bubbles out, mixed with tears. For a second, he feels like Nataku is beside him, laughing as well. Kanzeon snorts with amusement and breaks the moment.  
  
They start plucking out the planes sticking out of the folds of Koumyou’s clothes and the tangles in his hair, laughing at his startled bemusement.  
  
And that was how Jiroushin finally finds them.  
  
“Really, now! I am so disappointed in you both. The owner and co-owner of our institution, absent from vital meanings and playing like children, and in such disarray! It’s absurd. And the mess! Who do you think will clean this up, exactly, hm?” Jiroushin even wags a finger at them, though Kanzeon rolls nir eyes and complains while Koumyou tried to sneak away when he turned to Kanzeon.  
  
In the end though, Goku waves as his two playmates are forcefully ushered away, sending mournful looks behind them. Watching them leave, Goku can’t help but wonder whether he really is more of an adult than people gave him credit for. He looks at the envelope again, and at the picture. Really, he’s glad to have some time alone now. Time to remember Nataku and think about how he’d never known the other hadn’t had friends before.

 

* * *

 

Sanzo, Tenpou, and Kenren are there to witness the inevitable multiperson collision in all its spectacular glory. They are smoking unlit cigarettes (it is a hospital, they can only get away with so much) while discussing work schedules and “Goku-duty” as said boy runs over to talk to Pippi. They’re all standing in an area where three hallways intersect while Hakkai and Gojyo are strolling down one hallway, and Lirin is pulling Yaone and Kougaiji down another with Dokugakuji following. Apparently, all of them had decided that that exact day and that exact time are ideal conditions to visit Goku.  
  
So when Goku turns around and calls, “Sanzo!”  
  
. . . well, that’s when the squealing of out-of-control wheels begins.  
  
For at the same moment that Kenren, Tenpou, and Sanzo look up, Lirin spots Goku. She races forward, dropping the hands of Yaone and Kougaiji as she comes. Of course, she doesn’t let go until _after_ she hops over an empty unlocked gurney that some nurse is using  
  
     (and, wow! would you look at that, ladies and gents, that girl can really _jump_ , she can _fly_!)  
leaving Yaone and Kou to crash face first into the mattress  
     (aannnd _they’re_ both outta the runnin’!)  
and at the same moment Doku goes to grab the gurney,  
     (he’s going for the save)  
someone’s flailing foot connects to his face  
     (uf! that’s _got_ to hurt)  
and the gurney shoots off with a screech as he falls back on his ass.  
     (good try, numba four)  
Meanwhile, Hakkai and Gojyo hear Goku’s shout and both break into a light jog.  
     (and the other team advancing to the end line)

 

Really there is nothing any of the three witnesses could have done. Well, besides the riveting sports commentary Kenren manages to mutter under his breath.

Pippi looks up. Sees three men with unlit cigarettes falling from their open mouths, sees the approaching travesty, then grabs Goku (and Lirin, who’s reached them) and throws them all backward.

  
     Sqqquueearrrrelll-BANG.

 

Hakkai goes flying backward,  
               Yaone goes flying forward.  
          Gojyo goes flying backward,  
               Kou goes flying forward.

 

     A heap of four on the floor,

 

          and the gurney tips over on top of them all.

 

Sanzo, Kenren, and Tenpou are, by this point, already walking over, the blonde murmuring words that are decidedly unprofessional while wondering what any Buddhist temple would say about the _dependent origination_ of _this_ phenomenon.  
  
“Annnd that’s game!” Tenpou comments in an undertone when they reach the doggy-pile, causing Kenren to snort and Sanzo’s lips to twitch. Kenren pulls the victorious gurney off the opposing team while Tenpou offers Yaone a hand. As she gets up, she gets a good view of who she’d fallen onto.  
  
“Oh! Hello again. Looks like we managed the figurative and literal once more.”  
  
Hakkai laughs, “so it appears. Let’s not make the literal a habit, hm?”  
  
Yaone smiles, “Ah, but it certainly livens up the day, doesn’t it?”  
  
As the two converse, Dokugakuji gets himself off the floor and helps Kougaiji up. Gojyo finally manages to sit up, now that he’s not being crushed by other man with red hair, and the greater collision happens.  
  
“Gojyo?”  
  
“You-you gotta be kiddin’. . . .” Gojyo’s eyes are wide, voice shaky. Flashing of memories, bits and pieces of traumatic events. A knife dangling overhead on a string about to snap, light bouncing off the edge, and he can only think how scary light can be when it reveals just how much your stepmom hates you. Blood streaking across the floor and splashed on bare feet. Red staining a white shirt. Another knife held in his brother’s shaking hands. Tears. From a brother he never saw cry before. His brother walking away, leaving Gojyo with mom’s body by his feet. A phone call. Police. Handcuffing his brother who doesn’t look at Gojyo a single time. “What are _you_ doin’ here?”  
  
Nine pairs of eyes dart between the two, only Hakkai and Kougaiji with blooming understanding. Dokugakuji stands to his full height, now that Kougaiji is on his feet. He looks around, deliberately, at Kou, Lirin, and Yaone. “We came to see Goku.”  
  
“Well, what a fuckin’ coincidence. We’re here for that too,” Gojyo leans his head to the side, indicating Hakkai.  
  
It’s Goku who finally asks, “So you guys know each other?”  
  
“We’re half brothers,” Gojyo says with an odd lack of his normal inflection and way too casually. “It’s been years since we’ve seen each other though.”  
  
Sanzo honestly expects Goku to ask why that is, but instead Goku’s Sati appears, as it does so unexpectedly at times, and he accepts that with a nod then moves on. “We should play Mafia since we have so many people. And get snacks, lots of snacks from the cafeteria. It’ll be like a party!”  
  
“Ohhh, what’s Mafia?” Lirin asks, eyes shining.  
  
“You’ve never played? We gotta play for sure then! Tenpou an’ Hakkai are really good, an’ Kenren is an amazing bluffer, an’ Sanzo has the best poker face ever. Gojyo sucks at playing, but he’s a great narrator.”  
  
“Hey,” Gojyo protests.  
  
“Ah, Kenren and I have to get back to work,” Tenpou says. He looks at Pippi, “I’m sure you have to as well.” Pippi nods. “Sanzo? You haven’t taken your lunch break yet, have you?” Sanzo shakes his head. “Ah, well the three of us will be off then.” Kenren grasps Gojyo’s shoulder firmly as he passes, offering the redhead a grin before moving on. Tenpou and Pippi follow him.  
  
“Oh! Thanks for stopping us from being crushed,” Lirin exclaims, causing her brother to roll his eyes. Pippi smiles at her and waves goodbye.  
  
“And whose fault was that in the first place?”  
  
“Well, I guess I’ll go down to the cafeteria and pick up some goodies,” Gojyo cuts in, across any protests that might have followed Lirin’s indignant nonverbal reaction.  
  
“Would you like me to come?” Hakkai offers gently, meeting Gojyo’s eyes steadily, searchingly.  
  
“Nah,” Gojyo smiles, a real one this time, though his shoulders still hold slight tension.  
  
“If I remember correctly, I hated all the snacks you liked. Mind if I tag along?” Dokugakuji asks. Gojyo hesitates for a beat.  
  
“Sure, why not. We have a lot to catch up on, after all.” The words have a slight bite to them, but there’s also the hesitancy of something much more fragile. And he can’t do this. Not so unexpectedly. “Ya know, like what kinda food we both like now.”

 

Even with Goku, it’s awkward. Yaone and Hakkai attempting stilted conversation while Gojyo, Dokugakuji, and Kougaiji sit silently. Sanzo is stuck with Goku and Lirin. It’s not long before Gojyo looks at his phone, mumbles something about being called to work, then wanders out. Dokugakuji manages another twenty minutes, before he’s standing up too and the other three leave with him. Hakkai stays for a little bit longer before heading out as well, promising Goku he’ll let him know how Gojyo is.  
  
After the door closes, Goku turns to Sanzo, “Think Gojyo and Dokugakuji will be ok? They both seem really uncomfortable an’ sad.”  
  
Sanzo shrugs. “I have no idea.”  
  
Goku doesn’t look at all comforted by this. But Sanzo’s bad at comfort. Always has been.  
  
“I’m sure they’ll work it out eventually.”  
  
To Sanzo, his own words promptly trip and fall on their face as soon as they leave his lips. Goku, however, impossibly, brightens.  
  
“Yeah, they will, won’t they?”  
  
And Sanzo is struck by how much Goku believes in people—in their ability to do good. Sanzo believes in the opposite, in people’s capacity for evil. One other thing he shares with Ukoku, now that he considers it. Koumyou, Tenpou, and Kenren seem to be more realistic. Having more faith in humanity’s potential for good, but also fully aware of its failings. Not sure how the conversation can possibly proceed, Sanzo shrugs wordlessly.

 

* * *

 

“So how’s Goku doing?” Koumyou asks as soon as Sanzo walks into the kitchen. It’s one of Koumyou’s rare days off (one where he doesn’t spend his free time at the hospital anyway). Sanzo shrugs wordlessly. He could tell Koumyou that Goku has more headaches or that there’s a greater frequency of days where he can’t eat all that much, but he’s aware Koumyou already knows such things. The doctor makes it a point to visit each patient in the hospital once a week and personally check up on their progress. Sanzo’s watched many such visits, and has never yet seen, or heard of, a patient who has not opened up to Koumyou’s _dana_. It’s a large part of the reason Koumyou has such a high success rate with even the most difficult of people. When he became the head of the hospital, Kanzeon and Tenpou had stepped up and shared some of the work so that Koumyou could still practice. Sanzo’s not really sure who does all the work though, because it sure seems like Kanzeon and Koumyou don’t actually do much paperwork or anything. Well, unless you consider Koumyou’s paper airplanes taking care of paperwork. Tenpou does often carry a stack of loose papers, but he also has a tendency to misplace things or lose them in that maelstrom of papers, books, tea mugs, and who-knows-what-all that he calls an office. Hakkai will likely go on a cleaning frenzy, forcing them all to help, if he ever sees it. For everyone’s sake, especially his own, Sanzo decides to make sure Hakkai never manages to even look at Tenpou’s office door.  
  
“You two have gotten pretty close.”  
  
Sanzo’s first reaction is to snort and dismiss the statement, but Koumyou is looking at him expectantly. “. . . Yeah.” Koumyou smiles and goes back to folding an origami crane while Sanzo heats a kettle for tea.  
  
“And how about your friends?”  
  
Sanzo looks back at him incredulously, confused and irritated. “What friends?” He demands.  
  
“Hm,” Koumyou looks up at the ceiling, apparently searching for a note he’d stuck on the ceiling with a list of names on it. “Gojyo, the red head . . . and the guy from the other group, with the spiky black hair . . . Doku-something?”  
  
Sanzo turns away and pulls out two teacups and puts them on the counter a bit harder than necessary. “What about them?”  
  
“Tenpou says it turns out they’re related? And haven’t seem to have had any contact for years. He said neither will talk to anyone either.”  
  
“Oh? And how’d he find that out?” Sanzo demands as he pulls down a teapot and spoons loose leaf sencha into it.  
  
“That nice young man, Hakkai? He told Tenpou about Gojyo. And talked to that young woman who Kanzeon’s been counseling.  
  
“ _Kanzeon_ ’s been counseling?” Sanzo demands, letting himself go off the rails a bit. Kanzeon hardly counsels anyone anymore. Too busy with being head nurse and whatever else. And someone like Kanzeon counseling anyone was always frankly disturbing. Koumyou has never seen anything odd about it though. Then again, Koumyou willingly hired Ukoku, who had been convicted of murder in his teens.  
  
“Ah, well. She said she was bored, and I thought it a good fit.” Koumyou places his completed crane carefully on the table, lining it up with two others, before starting a new one. “That woman doesn’t have much confidence and well, you know how Kanzeon is.”  
  
Yes, yes Sanzo does. A deviant manipulative self-confident flirt whose salacious smiles and batting eyelashes will leave unprepared idiots gaping after her, not realizing she just insulted them and made off with their money till much, much later. Still, she does have a compassionate side. It’s merely highly questionable. So no cause for concern there. Not that he cares anyway.  
  
“ ‘tch.” Sanzo takes the whistling kettle off heat and pours the boiling water into the prewarmed pot. “You should know better than to listen to gossip.”  
  
“Why?” Koumyou’s expression is openly bemused.  
  
Sanzo rolls his eyes. “’cause people lie and make up stuff.”  
  
Koumyou hums thoughtfully as he finishes another crane. “And yet, even lies serve to uncover truths.”  
  
_Kaons_ from Koumyou are never an immediate response to a conversation, but are carefully formed and safeguarded until the moment was right to share. Judging by Koumyou’s opening questions, Sanzo can guess what the _kaon_ is really meant for.  
  
“Should I be watching for something?” Sanzo asks carefully.  
  
“You already are, just make sure your eyes stay open and clear, Kouryuu.”  
  
Sanzo pours the tea and they sit without talking after that. When Koumyou finishes his fifth crane, he hands Sanzo an orange piece of paper, then takes a piece of blue for himself. The finished cranes are set in the middle of the table side by side.  
  
“Finding someone who complements you, whether they’re your friend or brother or lover or anyone, make you and them all the brighter and more beautiful.”  
Koumyou smiles gently, and the moment almost feels surreal. Well, until Koumyou opens his mouth again. “Hmm, I wonder . . . if you find more people who complement you, do you just keep becoming more beautiful? Is there a limit of some kind?” Koumyou taps his chin in thought and Sanzo lets out a huff of laughter. Such a wise, compassionate man who’d strike you with astounding statements of insight, and yet such a bumbling airhead whom it could be difficult to take seriously. But that was Koumyou for you.

 

* * *

 

Lirin accompanies Yaone to the hospital, same as usual, but she doesn’t go to visit Goku. She’s not having a good day and right now . . . she just needs to be alone for a bit. She’d tried buying her mom flowers, but her mom had asked what she was supposed to do with something so useless, and threw them in the trash. Then she ignored Lirin, same as usual. But she can’t talk about it with Yaone, Doku, or her stepbrother.  
  
She loves them, she does. But she isn’t so much of a child that they always have the right thing to say, all of the answers. And it’s hard to talk about anyway. Especially to Kou. Don’t get her wrong, normally her brother’s the first she goes to and he’s awesome but . . . but his mom loved him. And that makes all the difference.  
  
Dokugaiji had tried talking with her before, but he isn’t the best with words—never has been, judging by what she’s seen of the interactions between him and his brother. His awkward, halting attempts make Lirin sad more than anything because she sees his pain and guilt, and then that makes her angry because he’d had to go through all those things. Yaone is super kind and reminds Lirin that the four of them are family and they’re all there for her. But that doesn’t make the pain stop or the ache go away. Her mom . . . her mom had. . . .  
  
They couldn’t even talk about what had happened right before Kou took over custody, though her mom retained visiting rights. The three of them just get all angry and sad when it’s brought up. She knows they just want to protect her, and they have, but she _had_ gotten hurt—not that she is blaming them for that, ‘cause it certainly isn’t their fault. Just . . . Lirin needs to talk about it. Or at least think about it. She doesn’t feel like she can talk to Goku about it either. She likes him lots, but whenever she’s talked to someone her own age about her mom, well, they didn’t understand and it’s never ended well. So for now, she sits here where it’s quiet and considers her mom and why she hates Lirin so much.

 

Hakkai ended up having work, so Gojyo comes to the hospital alone this time. He parks by the psych ward entrance and as he’s walking through the waiting room to head into the convoluted route that will lead him to Goku’s room, he spies Kou’s kid sister. Since their first meeting, Lirin has always come straight to Goku’s room no matter what. If Yaone has an appointment, Lirin just waits in Goku’s room for the older female to come join them after it. So finding her here? Definitely unusual. Not only that, but the normally cheerful and energetic girl is huddled in her chair, knees drawn up and hugged tight to her chest, face hidden. Gojyo doesn’t know her all that well—well, at all really. Still, a sad kid who’s also female? Hits two weak spots.  
  
So he about-faces and plops down into a chair next to her, “so what’s with the long face?”  
  
Lirin’s face pops up but she scowls at him, “it’s nonna your business.” Then she promptly buries her head between her knees. It takes a few minutes of waiting, but eventually Lirin peeks up at him, “why . . . are ya still here?” It’s suspicious and hopeful and curious and sad all at once, and it’s so fucking familiar.  
  
“Well I can’ help but worry. After all, kiddies should be with their handlers,” Gojyo informs her, sneer as characteristic as the cigarette rolling between two long fingers. “If ya lost your perfect big brositter, you should run home to yer mommy.”  
  
Gojyo sees how Lirin bristles at the mocking tone with which he’d talked about her brother but then abruptly wobbles dangerously under the weight of that last word.  
  
“Fat chance! My mamma doesn’t like me and I don’t like her anyway! And I don’t like you either, ya fathead!” She blew a raspberry at him but he walks past her and pats her head, which makes her scowl and swat at him, then drops with an ungraceful flop and a groan into the chair next to her.  
  
“Let’s just take this leisurely like, I’m not allowed to even pull a cigarette out in Goku’s ward, so I’m just gonna sit here and pretend I’m smokin’, yeah?” Gojyo winks at her like they’re conspiring together.  
  
“Fine! But only ‘cause I’m the most gracious of ladies! An’ you only get the one pretend smoke,” Lirin declares, finger held aloft.  
  
“Oooo, why thank ya kindly, darling.” Gojyo mocks.  
  
“I ain’t yer darlin’!” Lirin snaps back immediately, but he shrugs rather than continue arguing. The coward, she decides. A few moments pass in silence, both of them staring at the ceiling. Lirin’s just getting bored when he speaks.  
  
Really, at first Gojyo just focuses on how nice being able to actually smoke his goddamn cigarette would be about now. “So, what’s all this then?” Gojyo’s head tips toward her, “‘bout yer mother and you.” He flaps his hand around as if dismissing it as trivial. But his eyes, shadowed by red eyelashes, lock on Lirin’s with an intensity he’s never shown her before. That, more than anything else, makes her feel suddenly odd, like this isn’t real anyway. A dream or something.  
  
She considers this for a while, but eventually she mumbles, “That’s it, really.” Lirin tucks her knees up against her again, encircled within the frame of her arms, and her chin droops to rest on her knees. “She hates me.” And that damn redhead doesn't say anything. Lirin wants to leave. “An’ I don’ know why.” She buries her face in her arms, no longer caring about seeing his reaction but lacking the bravery to get up and leave. She hopes he leaves instead.  
  
Gojyo would have missed her words if he hadn’t leaned a bit closer. He considers that admission for a bit. He knows she lives with Kougaiji now. Of course, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have any more contact with her mom. Then again, even if she didn’t and her mom was even dead, that didn’t make a hurt like this any less. He should fucking know. He waits for Lirin to come back out of hiding and finally, one eye peeks out from her hiding place to check.  
  
“It ain’t anything ya did,” Gojyo says then. “Sometimes a person just decides to believe somethin’ an’ nothin’ ya do matters. But that’s on them, an’ them only.”  
  
Lirin’s heard similar phrases from Yaone and Dokugaiji, but the way Gojyo said it-it sounded so . . . sad, in a way that’s different from how the others had said it. And then he smiles at her, but not that gross smirk. This one is small and shy or something. What was that word Yaone used once . . . tentative? Lirin isn’t sure. She’s never seen a smile like that directed at her from anyone except . . . maybe Kou.  
  
“That’s what Kou an’ Doku an’ Yaone say. But . . . how do ya know?”  
  
Despite her obvious desire to believe the people she loves most in the world, it’s a hard thing to accept that there’s nothing you can do or not do to change the mind of someone—especially a parent—who hates you when they’re supposedly meant to love you unconditionally. Hell, how can Gojyo change her mind when he still struggles with that same voice in the back of his mind?  
“My mom, well . . . stepmom, didn’t love me either.” Christ. For this conversation, he really wishes he could actually light up the goddamn cigarette. Lirin, meanwhile, ponders his words, and at first she’s almost suspicious, but then she nods understandingly. “So that’s why Doku feels guilty around you, huh?”  
  
Hell. This is awkward. Gojyo scratches a cheek, the one that’s scarred, as it happens. “Well, uh. Yeah, somewhere along those lines anyway.” Gojyo’s pretty sure it’s not so much about him being hated by his stepmom but more of what happened when Dokugakuji stepped in to stop his mom from killing Gojyo.  
  
“So do _you_ believe it? That it wasn’t your fault? Tha’ ya couldna done anything?”  
  
Because of _course_ she asks.  
  
Gojyo can’t lie about this. Can’t bluff his way through and declare of course he believes that. But telling her he doesn’t and leaving it at that won’t exactly help anything. “Look, I think there’s always gonna be some doubt tha’ ya can’t get rid of. But yer future shouldn’t be determined by the past an’ well . . . if yer mom isn’t including ya in her future, don’t waste yers on her.”  
Lirin considers this. “It’s jes’ . . . everyone at school has these awesome moms and when Kou talks about his mom—she died when he was younger than I am—he’s so happy.”  
  
“Well, kiddo, ya can’t have everything.” She opens her mouth to retort but he hurries on, “I mean, does everyone in your class have a cool older bro like yers? Or anyone like Yaone an’ . . . an’ Dokugakuji?”  
  
Lirin considers this. “I guess not.”  
  
“Well then.” He clears his throat awkwardly. He has no more bullshit he can pull out for this.  
  
“Hmm, I guess . . . if I had a good mom, I wouldn’t get to live with Yaone and Doku as well as my brother. . . . I wouldn’t want to lose that, I guess not even for a mommy.”  
Gojyo could jump onto the check in counter and dance. No, really he could. He’s so goddamn proud of himself. Hakkai would be so proud. He would do it if, ya know, he wouldn’t get thrown out on his ass because of it. (Well, that wouldn’t be so bad but prissy Sanzo’s reaction would seriously just suck.) Of course then she goes and makes him wish it was appropriate to run away screaming from a kid. . . .  
  
“Is Doku part of yer future?”  
  
“Crissake.” He hadn’t _thought_ so. After Dokugakuji killed his mom to protect Gojyo, they’d gone to different relatives. Dokugakuji had to go through all this court shit first, even though he was still a juvie, and then he stayed with someone from their dad’s family. Gojyo was put in the care of some washup from his mom’s side, and ran away as soon as he turned 16. Dokugakuji went through college and got a good career while Gojyo dropped out of high school and made his living through shit like gambling and the odd jobs here and there. It’s not like they spoke once they ended up with different people. (Well, Gojyo tried once or twice but his “guardian” wouldn’t let him. He has no clue if his brother tried.) And well. Then Gojyo ran off. And by the time Gojyo settled down somewhere long enough to, ya know, get his name in an address book, he figured he and his brother were quits. Neither of them looked each other up when they had the freedom to, after all. But then they meet at a goddamn hospital. Visiting the same goddamn patient. And Dokugakuji wanted to talk right then and there. And honestly, Gojyo had kept deflecting him. No way in hell he was ready then. And damn, Sanzo’s friggin’ right when he says things like “karma’s laughing at us.”  
  
“I dunno kid. I have no clue.” Lirin doesn’t press the issue, thank fuck, and they both sit there in silence.  
  
Gojyo almost jumps when she scoots over and leans her head on his shoulder, leaning awkwardly over the chair’s metal armrest (ha, more like arm-death). Instead, he manages to stay very, very still, and very, very stiff. By the time Yaone comes out, Lirin and Gojyo are both dozing—him slouched in the seat with his head tilted back against the wall, arms crossed and mouth open, with the unlit cigarette somehow still perched between his lips. He only knows that because Yaone, the chick Hakkai claims is “so sweet,” took a goddamn photo of them. Lirin is pleased of course, but _she_ ’s a kid and of course looks all cute curled up against him, even though she’d _drooled_ on him.  
  
He really hopes his brother won’t see it, but he’s pretty sure he knows who all Yaone sent it to.  
  
Damn karma is a fucking bitch.

 

* * *

 

It’s Jikaku’s birthday and everyone’s there. EVERYONE. All the nurses and doctors take turns stopping in (Jikaku’s been in and out enough that they all know him and vice versa), and Hakkai, Gojyo, Yaone, Kou, Dokugakuji, and Lirin all come, each having been dragged to meet the old man by Goku at least once (or twice, or more . . . ) in the past. The room is crowded and noisy and everyone’s having a great time, but whenever Hakkai looks up and spots Yaone, she’s usually staring at the full drink in her hands in a corner. She smiles whenever anyone talks to her, but as soon as they leave, it does too. When she slips out onto the room’s attached balcony, Hakkai, concerned, follows her.  
  
“Everything all right?”  
  
She startles, hand cupping her heart protectively. “Oh, Hakkai! You startled me. . . .” He waits, looking at her steadily. “I just—well, I-I’m not feeling all that . . . great and didn’t want to get everyone else down.” Her smile is soft and kind and it wakens the snarled vines in Hakkai’s chest that begin to writhe again, stabbing his heart with thorns.  
  
“Are you, you’re not. . . .” Hakkai’s well aware of how depression works. A turn for the better, whether through medicine or counseling or something else altogether, means an increase in energy and the ability to plan. Thus, the odds of a successful suicide attempt rise. Of course, Yaone has only told him a bit about hers, so it is a leap, but when someone close to you was suffering more than you ever realized, you tend to grow a tendency to look that way into everyone around you. Yaone looks at him, head slightly cocked and not understanding. He can see the exact moment she realizes what he’s getting at.  
  
“Oh, no! I’m not . . . I wouldn’t do that to everyone.” She pauses and turns her eyes to the setting sun, hands clasping the railing. “Though I-I tried. Once before.”  
  
Hakkai looks at her steadily then leans against the wall next to her, and gazes up at the sky too. “I think like that too sometimes,” he admits. “About dying. About how it’d be better for everyone if I’m not around, and about how it wouldn’t hurt anymore. I haven’t . . . tried to take my own life, but once, I was dying and just didn’t care. If it wasn’t for Gojyo I might have, probably would have. . . .” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Yaone’s watching him carefully. “I didn’t have anyone at that time, and then I had Gojyo and now I have so many people.” He meets her eyes, a slight smile on his face, but one that’s so very sad. “Now that I have them, I can’t possibly give up on this life, no matter how much I want to.” Another deep breath. “My . . . older sister committed suicide.” Yaone’s eyes widen briefly and she puts a hand on his arm. “So I know how painful it is to be the one left behind. And I can’t—I can never put someone else through that.”  
  
“I’m very sorry,” Yaone tells him softly. “I know that doesn’t help though. . . .” She falls silent for a while, chewing her bottom lip. “I don’t—I don’t know if it’s my place to say this, but . . . I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt you.”  
  
“I know.” Hakkai removes his glasses and wipes his sleeve hurriedly across his eyes. “I know she didn’t. But I just . . . wonder if she knew how much I’d hurt after. . . . If she knew how much I cared.”  
  
They stand there for a while, watching the sun set, her hand still on his arm.  
  
“Thank you for telling me this,” Yaone says when the last rays of light are melding into soft blue-edged black. Her hand leaves him as gently as the sun leaves the sky.  
“I hope it helps you, at least a little.” His smile is shaky. “If you . . . ever need to talk to someone who. . .”  
  
“Isn’t overprotective?” Yaone asks, glancing through the glass back at Kougaiji and Dokugakuji, then turning back and smiling when she sees how her words help steady his smile.  
  
“Yes, or paid to listen,” he returns.  
  
“Thank you . . . that, that means a lot.” Her eyes turn downward. “I-I don’t want to hurt anyone like that, but it’s just. . . .”  
  
“Hard. It’s so very hard.”  
  
And there is no judgment in his voice, only understanding borne of personal experience.

 

Gojyo has just finished talking with yet another gorgeous chick and swaggers over to the tables laid with food and drink. He’s pouring himself a drink when he realizes that Dokugakuji is picking up toothpicks stabbed through olives and cheese. Well, he was until Gojyo came up at which he awkwardly stopped mid motion.  
  
“Oh, um. Hey.” Slick Gojyo. Real fucking smooth.  
  
“Uh,” Dokugakuji clears his throat, turning slightly away with a fist in front of his mouth as he coughs shortly before angling back towards Gojyo. “Hey.” They both stand there—one interrupted in food-grazing and the other still mid-pour. “So, uh. Nice party, huh?” Dokugakuji looks determinedly at those still dancing. Gojyo’s eyes are immediately drawn to the same sight, sliding past his half-brother.  
  
“Yup.” Another embarrassing silence as neither of them say anything more. Well fuck that. “Danced with a lotta good-looking women. A couple men too.” Gojyo pulls off a half decent eyebrow waggle for emphasis. He hopes it’s passable. At least it startles a surprised laugh out of Dokugakuji.  
  
“Is that so?” The older’s eyes are filled with good humor when he meets his the red-head’s gaze. “I’ve only danced with Lirin and Yaone myself.”  
  
Gojyo finishes pouring his drink, trying to stay cool, casual, composed, and fuck he slopped some over his hand. Damn tremors. “Yeah, well, Yaone’s good looking. And Lirin is . . . ha, she’s a good kid in any case, even if she’s a bit pushy. I’m sure she gets into a fair amount of trouble.”  
  
And damn if Doku isn’t practically smirking now. “So, I saw that picture that Yaone took of you and Lirin.”  
  
Fuck-ing Hell. “Aw, geez. Ugh,” Gojyo’s head drops, hands braced on the table as he tries not to just spontaneously combust due to the sheer force of utter humiliation. “Nevermind, that Yaone chick is scary.”  
  
Dokugakuji chuckles and moves closer to lean against the table next to Gojyo. “You have no idea. Anyway though, Lirin . . . she reminds me a lot of you when you were . . . well a kid.”  
And there it is. The field of landmines, and he’s out of clear ground. Time to step carefully. “Yeah? Heh, guess that means you think I was cute.”  
  
“Haha, I was thinking more of . . . stubborn and energetic. With a defiant streak a mile long.”  
  
“Well, that was only with you, that I hadta push back.” The words are out before Gojyo’s thought them through. So much for stepping carefully. He picks up his drink just for something to do and sips on it as cringe-worthy quiet reigns once more. Doku rubs the back of his neck and shifts his weight from toes to heel and back, eyes averted.  
  
“Look, I’m,” Dokugakuji starts only to trail off. But he takes a breathe and trundles on. “ . . . I can’t really apologize for anything, it won’t do either of us any good but well. . . .”  
  
Gojyo’s hands are shaking so much he has to put the drink back down. And man, he’s so not prepared for this. “Do you—” His voice cracks and he has to clear his throat. “Would ya like to get a beer sometime?”  
  
Dokugakuji stares at him like a driver realizing there’s a deer in front of their car, and Gojyo just wants to leap in that tiny ass cup of punch and just live there as a stupid goddamn fish. Or a kappa. “Uh, yeah.” Gojyo blinks. What. Dokugakuji starts collecting food again, piling it hurriedly on his plate. “I’d uh, I’d like that.”  
  
“Oh, well, ok.”  
  
“I’m supposed to be getting food for Kou too, so I should—”  
  
“Yeah, no worries.”  
  
They both pause, stuck in this stupid scene for yet another rerun. “Hey, um. Thanks.” Dokugakuji offers him a small but sincere smile and then walks away stiffly as quickly as he can while Gojyo’s still standing there, mouth open.  
  
“Trying to catch fleas?”  
  
Gojyo spins and there’s Sanzo, that asshole, standing there nonchalantly, picking at the food. “Fuck you.” He fires back. Real original. No, really.  
Sanzo rolls his eyes and continues on. Gojyo’s still trying to remember how to move his stupid feet when the blonde grabs his hand and gives him a plate piled with gyoza before walking away wordlessly.

He really is a strange guy.

 

“Here you go old geezer.” Sanzo throws a pack of cigarettes at Jikaku, and shoves a plate of food at him.  
  
“Ho ho, I thought you wanted me to quit smoking?” The old man is smiling beneath bushy eyebrows, eyes crinkled with humor.  
  
“Like I could get you stop.”  
  
They both look silently over those who have gathered. The conference room is full of people, quite a few obviously tipsy though there isn’t supposed to be any alcohol. Huh.  
Sanzo swipes the styrofoam cup Jikaku is drinking from and takes a swig. Sake, just like he suspected. Jikaku’s eyebrow arches. Sanzo doesn’t give the cup back but pulls a chair over to sit with the old geezer.

 

* * *

 

Goku forgets stuff sometimes. He’ll set something down in a place he never would have set anything down previously and then can’t remember he did that, leading to him forever searching for things. Sometimes he forgets how to do something, even something as simple as opening a jar. (Kenren and Tenpou sneak in Nutella sometimes—which Hakkai highly disapproves of when he catches them at it, though he never takes it away. Gojyo only ever sneaks in beer for himself, that jerk, though he’ll bring Goku meat buns from the cafeteria downstairs sometimes.) Most of them take it in stride. Hakkai, Kenren, and Yaone all have the tendency to just take whatever it is from him and do it for him. Kou and Dokugakuji awkwardly ask if he needs help. Gojyo mocks him for it, but will come over to help as well as tease. Goku always got mad about that, but then the one time Gojyo didn’t poke fun at him, Goku actually felt worse (things weren’t normal anymore). Lirin reassures him loudly as she helps (often explaining to him how to do it like he’s a child, something that’s by turns annoying and helpful). Koumyou and Tenpou are quiet comforts who come closer but continue with what they’re doing until he either gets it himself or stops trying, at which point they take it from him gently. Sanzo ignores stuff like that and continues on, letting Goku try to do it himself multiple times. If no one else is around to help when Goku reaches a point where he is frustrated enough to let them, Sanzo will do it without comment.

 

* * *

 

It’s Wednesday, four in the morning, none of them have slept for 38 hours, they finally have an hour or so, and Ukoku brought sake. Jiroushin would flip out. Luckily, he isn’t at the hospital today.  
  
Kenren and Koumyou are on a quest to find a sport that Koumyou is good at. The man is a surprisingly skilled martial artist, but beyond that he’s hopeless. It’s a sight to see, Kenren explaining patiently for the tenth time in a row how to throw the ball like a baseball and succeed in _not_ hitting him in the face, Koumyou with a deep frown of concentration before he gets bored, pouts, and decides to try something else. The sad thing is, Koumyou was horrible at it all before he drank any sake.  
  
“So, did you read Oliver Sacks’ article on Alice in Wonderland Migraine Syndrome?” Ukoku asks, having lent a science journal to Tenpou ages ago. Well, not lent as much as gave, as everyone knows if you give Tenpou something it’ll be lost in the wilderness of paper and ink that’s sprawled in the man’s office.  
  
“Ah, yes! Migraines are fascinating, aren’t they?”  
  
“Hm, I’ve been considering switching to that field.”  
  
“Becoming bored again?” Tenpou smiles, but he’s prodding—searching for Ukoku’s future plans. Ukoku humors him. Even he doesn’t want Tenpou to start digging for info on him.  
“Well. We have enough ER doctors and morticians, but we don’t have a migraine specialist, and we can’t afford one.” True migraine specialists are rare and in demand practically everywhere, meaning they get all kinds of offers and their hospital is too small to compete.  
  
“I see the appeal. Without any medication that’s migraine specific, and with each person’s brain and migraine completely unique, one truly needs to know about all medications across the board in order to treat patients. And there’s so many different types and symptoms.”  
  
“And so many mysteries. And its ties to seizure are intriguing.”  
  
“Hm,” Tenpou considers him, eyes and smile cutting, “And it is highly misunderstood, with misconceptions everywhere, just the sort of thing to catch your attention.”  
  
Ukoku shrugs. “It’s hard to treat, hard to understand, the majority of people are too stupid to understand it. Who wouldn’t be interested?” His smile is dark and superior. “With minds like ours anyway.”  
  
Tenpou just smiles. “Well, I still am enjoying surgery.”  
  
“Haha, you would wouldn’t you?”  
  
“Have you read the articles on ‘silent migraine,’ migraines without pain?”  
  
“Of course. And people think they’re just headaches.” Ukoku shakes his head despairingly.  
  
“Ah—”  
The ball Koumyou just kicked comes whizzing towards the pair. Ukoku leans out of its path, but Tenpou brings a hand down sternly, and whacks it down in one smooth blow.  
  
“Watch out.” Koumyou adds to his earlier exclamation.  
  
Kenren sighs and brackets the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “You’re supposed to say that before the ball gets to them. . . .”  
  
“Haha, well if they couldn’t dodge it or anything, they’d be pretty useless wouldn’t they?” Koumyou flows over to recover the errant projectile, while the others ponder whether maybe that time, Koumyou messed up on purpose. “Hm, Tenpou, you were the last to see Goku?”  
  
Tenpou sighs, all humor fading into preparation. “He’s getting worse. The drug therapy doesn’t appear to be doing much anymore.”  
  
“You have him for therapy tomorrow, Kenren?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Can you tell me what you think afterwards?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Ukoku watches the three of them with a frown. Sometimes he just doesn’t understand. All of them know it’s time to move on to chemo, and none of them are the type to hesitate or overlook an issue. He doesn’t say anything though. Koumyou has always taken things at his own pace and knows when he should act, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

 

* * *

 

“No Sanzo today?” Kenren asks as Goku walks into the room, already out of breath and leaning against Tenpou. The kid just shakes his head, no smile of any kind at all. Kenren’s eyebrow questions Tenpou.  
  
“Genjo and Koumyou had something to take care of together,” the “General” (as everyone calls him in the hospital behind his back, though Kenren calls him it to his face) reports. “I agreed to fill in today.”  
  
Since that first time Goku gave up, Genjo has come to every appointment. Koumyou’s kid had given Kenren so much grief for letting Goku leave halfway through. Kenren would have argued back, Genjo may have been around a doctor and hospital most of his life, but Kenren knows all about exercising and when to push and when to not (even before going into PT, Kenren had a lot of experience through taking care of fellow athletes and by coaching), except for what he saw.  
  
No matter what Kenren did, no matter how he encouraged or wheedled or challenged, Goku only managed exercises aborted halfway through, then would stare up at him, biting a trembling lip and trying hard not to cry. The same thing happened with Genjo, but the doctor-in-training would just watch with crossed arms, scowling at anyone who looked over (Kenren included—luckily he could use the reflections off equipment and glass walls to be sneaky) until they averted their eyes and moved away, until Goku would try again. And again.  
Goku and Genjo know the exercises so Kenren mainly let them be, occasionally wandering over to quietly correct Goku’s grip or stance before going to work with someone else. The few times he thought he should take over, Goku would sit there, head down, tears just starting to leak through eyelash cracks. Kenren would be on his way over when Sanzo’s arms would come uncrossed and he’d get close to the kid, ruffle his hair, say something or other that would draw a vibratoed smile, then resume his position and posture. And every time, Goku went back to it. Over and over.  
  
Kenren has never seen a patient or athlete try that hard before. There always comes a point where it’s too much for the person and they stop—  
  
Genjo really is Koumyou’s son in some ways, fuck blood relations. They have the _Karuna_ and _Panna_ to let them connect with others in ways others could not, and an intense _Saddha_ in humanity. Where Koumyou accepts humanity’s failings but doesn’t linger on them, Genjo does not. Oh, he doesn’t condemn people for things so many others do, but that’s due to moral complexity. Genjo and Koumyou both hold people to their own standards, and Genjo never quite recovered from when he saw them severely broken.  
  
Koumyou and Kanzeon were right, Goku and Sanzo really are good for each other. And yet. . . .  
  
Well. Perhaps Goku will keep beating the odds. Kenren sure hopes so. He’d give up anything to make that happen.  
  
“Alright, you ready, Goku?” The kid nods, but he’s obviously nervous.

 

By the end, Tenpou and Kenren look at each other gravely. There’s no putting it off anymore. Along with the increasing headaches, memory issues, fatigue, blurred vision, and forgetfulness, Goku now has problems with balance and coordination, and Kenren has to repeat instructions multiple times—which he’s never had to do before—and even then Goku will get confused partway through.

 

* * *

 

Yesterday was shat out the ass of Buddha. Koumyou and Sanzo had to tell Jikaku he has lung cancer, and to discuss options. And damn, he had grown too attached to the stupid, stubborn old man.  
  
And now Sanzo’s spent the morning trying to study for a test today and is throwing his messenger bag over his shoulder when Koumyou walks over, still on the phone, and hands Sanzo a piece of paper.

_Goku’s starting chemo._

Getting a fucking note like that while your parent is talking on the phone, a note that lets you know what’s going on because they can’t stop talking to the person on the other end even for a moment (lest something else break) . . . there’s a moment where all your brain can process is those damn words in front of you. And yet, it can’t. Not really. There’s no comprehension at first because it just can’t be real. You stare and read them over and over, over and over. And then it spreads. Like having rain-soaked jeans. First they’re just wet, then they start sticking to you, and the discomfort increases minute by minute, and the warmth in your skin is slowly drained away, sucked up by your cold wet clothes. The horror is like that. At first it’s just a distant sensation creeping until you notice it all at once.  
  
And you just stand there. Trying to come to terms with this but unable to. Because it’s just not _fair_ , it’s not right, there’s something terribly wrong.  
  
And when that’s what’s in front of you, everything just loses importance. Nothing matters except this one thing. You don’t give a damn if you fail your classes. Such things go without comment or care or thought, past an initial idle realization. It’s like standing in the middle of an ashen wasteland and there’s one tree that’s still standing somehow, but struggling, and you’re just trying to get to that tree.  
  
Sanzo doesn’t even bother emailing or calling any teachers or classmates. He just throws what he needs into his jacket and heads out the door, Koumyou clasping his shoulder briefly as he walks past and mouthing “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”  
  
Stupid Buddha. Or universe. Karma. Whatever. They couldn’t just shit all over one person in a week, could they?

 

Goku doesn’t even look up when Sanzo enters. Tenpou and Kenren leave his side quietly and draw Sanzo partially back into the hall.  
  
“Kid doesn’t want to do chemo,” Kenren tells him in an undertone.  
  
“What? What the hell do you mean he doesn’t—”  
  
“We’ve been trying to reason with him,” Tenpou interrupts. “Perhaps you’ll fare better.”  
  
“Don’t be too harsh on the kid,” Kenren cautions.  
  
“We’re going to meet with Koumyou when he gets back. Kanzeon as well. We’ll do what we can.”  
  
Sanzo’s left half in and half out, watching the physicians walk off, then watching Goku, who’s sitting on his bed and staring out the window.  
  
“You gonna’ come in?” It’s a challenge, but one that doesn’t sound like it can detonate. Sanzo’s never been really been one for hesitating anyway, so he closes the door quietly behind him then sits on the bed with Goku, back to back—Goku staring outside and Sanzo looking at a damn wall.  
  
“Well?” Sanzo finally demands.  
  
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” Goku’s back tenses and draws away a bit.  
  
“Yes, you do,” Sanzo grits out.  
  
“No I don’t.”  
  
“We aren’t playing this childish game,” Sanzo scuffs.  
  
“Good, then drop it,” Goku shoots back.  
  
“Like hell I will. Why the hell aren’t you doing chemo?”  
  
“It’s none of your business!” Goku finally turns around at that, sitting up straight, eyes glaring. Sanzo glares back. Goku breaks first and looks back out the window, his jaw stubbornly closed.  
“Goku . . .”  
  
“Can you not? You always complain about me pushin’ and havin’ to know everything and now who’s doin’ it?”  
  
Neither of them move or speak as the mental echoes fade. They sit a long time in the silence. Goku’s still gazing beyond the window-glass and Sanzo watches the clock, keeping time by each second’s click. Finally, Sanzo stands.  
  
“If you’re not going to tell me—”  
  
“What, you’ll leave? Because I don’t want to answer?”  
  
“No, because you’re being a brat.”  
  
“Ha! Says the person who always shares his thoughts and feelings.”  
  
“At least I plan on a future.”  
  
“Who says I don’t plan on that?”  
  
“Well, you’re sure as hell not acting like it. You’ve refused all forms of chemotherapy. And you won’t tell anyone why the hell you won’t—”  
  
“BECAUSE I CAN’T.” The words finally tear through the tape that had held Goku’s lips sealed, ripping through in a bursting roar of anger distilled from frustration and helplessness. And as the syllables leave, they take the energy brought by angry, empowering adrenaline with them. “I _can’t_ , ok!?” What’s left in Goku’s voice is hopeless defeat tempered by frustration. “I just can’t.”  
  
And Sanzo really, really does not like this tone in Goku’s voice. He wants the anger back, wants Goku fighting.  
  
“So what, you just give up?” And yeah, yeah Sanzo’s ticked off and a bit disgusted.  
  
“SHUT UP!” Goku screams. “You act like you know everything but you don’t! You have no idea what it’s like. I’m terrified to sleep even though I’m exhausted all the time and daydream about sleep all day. . . but-but each morning it’s harder and harder to remember why I should get up, why I have to get up. And that should _terrify_ me but when it happens, I don’t care. I don’t care about _anything_! You have no idea how scary that is, knowing that you just stopped caring because you were tired and everything hurt and you just—didn’t feel anything anymore. I don’t—I . . . I can’t.”  
  
Goku’s face crumples and he hides it behind his hands while his eyes are still fierce and glaring, not wanting Sanzo to see him without any defiance left. “And you—you don’t even know,” he chokes out.  
  
“You don’t know anything about me,” Sanzo starts, voice so soft but hiding a sharpness.  
  
“Oh? Oh yeah!?” Fine, fine then! Goku will fucking tell him and damn the consequences. “Oh so you know what it’s like to-to have a FUCKING NEEDLE in your HEAD??” Goku’s frightened of himself when he hears his own laugh: hysterical, but cruel. But he also feels so powerful and free in his anger. He’s scared but viciously glad now that he’s not holding back.  
“There’s a needle in my head, it runs right through my eye and mouth, and pokes out under my jaw and every motion just, jolts it. But it’s not, it’s not there. I know it’s not really there. It’s not a physical needle, that’s impossible. But,  
it’s there.  
it’s there.  
It’sThere  
IT IS THERE  
I can feel it. I know just where it is. It’s like I could-could just pull it out.  
but  
       it won’t  
come  
       OUT.  
There’s a needle in my head but there can’t be. But food gets stuck on it and it hurts to smile and I don’t want to wait until I’m somewhere private where I can just freak out. And I-I just want. . . . someone to stay. Someone to understand. Someone who won’t look at or treat me differently.” He’s more scared than anything now. He hadn’t really meant to say all this, but it’s too late, too late now. So Goku just presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and tries to hold back what tears and sobs he can and just keeps going.

  
“But I-I don’t want anyone to see me like this. No one can handle it. They’ll end up leaving, they always do. Heh. Not that I can blame them. I’m not—I’m not strong . . . but I don’t want anyone to see me weak either. And it’s not. like I can tell anyone about a needle in my head. I mean that’s, that’s just crazy.” And he can’t help it, he needs to laugh, needs to choke himself with the absurdity of it.  
  
“I’m craaaaaaaaazzzzzz-y. . . .  
  
but not. Because this is a thing. An actual thing my brain is doing, sending me these stupid screwy pain signals that there’s a needle in my head. And it’s—there’s a tumor but there’s not—There’s not a needle going through my skull like that.”  
  
Goku glares up at Sanzo again. “And you, won’t let me . . . Everyone else gets to have excuses when they don’t feel good. But not those of us who never feel good. We have to normalize it, but why? Why should we? Why do I need to normalize this? I mean, I can . . . I’ve been doing it all this time. I did it myself before all of you came along. I can sit there and eat my food normally and not run into the bathroom, not scratch all over my face trying to dislodge this needle. But then I can’t . . . sometimes I can’t lie. And no one can handle the truth. But I try. To just. Be normal. And then you guys always keep asking and asking because it hurts too much for me to smile or talk.” He hides his eyes again and breaks off, biting his lips to try to control the panicked sobs that are ripping his throat up in their attempts to claw their way free.  
  
“I need to normalize it so no one worries. But, why do I have to? What is normal about having a needle in your brain? What is normal about your—your brain fucking up because of a-a hardware defect or whatever-the-fuck a tumor is to it. Even if it’s not there, my brain says it is. So why should I act normal  
when it’s **not normal**  
it’s **not ok.**  
And now-now I . . . I won’t be able to do that. Everyone’s going to know. I won’t be able to do anything normal anymore.” Goku is cut off again, as always, by his own body and can only sit there gasping, palms pressed against the “windows to his soul” (he doesn’t want anyone to see), and eyes too blurry to see anything besides smeared blotches of light anyway. But he can feel. He can feel the snot flowing out of his nose and running down his chin. Can feel the burning path of salt left by his tears. The warm press of his hands against delicate eyelids. And . . . and a heavy weight placed on his shoulder.  
  
“You idiot.”  
  
Sanzo’s fingers dig in, gripping onto Goku harshly “When have I ever asked you to do any of that?”  
  
Goku tries to reply but all that he gets out is an embarrassingly stuttered syllable and then more gasps.  
  
“Yeah, I don’t fucking know what it’s like, _exactly_ to go what you have to. But I _do_ know that there are a lot of people in this goddamn hospital that have it as bad as you, many have it worse, and they’re not throwing tantrums like this.”  
  
Goku can’t scream like this, so he tries to deck Sanzo in the face instead, but the student grabs his fist and twists it down, using the momentum to pull Goku into his side, arms wrapping around to pin the younger’s arms and hold him in an awkward but delicate embrace.  
  
“Just listen you monkey-brain.” Sanzo’s tone is rough and harsh but shaky. “Don’t you, don’t you dare _normalize_ anything. Not for me, not for anyone. Fuck society. Fuck whatever anyone thinks. You don’t owe them anything. Your smiles, they’re _yours_. You can do whatever you want with them. Do you see me forcing smiles for anyone? When have I ever normalized anything?” Goku snuffles into Sanzo’s shoulder (which is rapidly becoming damp) and shakes his head in a miniscule, completely meaningless motion.  
  
“I don’t have the pain that you do. But I know what it’s like to lose all of your will, to just not care about anything and know that it should terrify you but it doesn’t, and so you know that there must be something wrong with you. I know what it’s like to be completely, utterly helpless. But you’re so selfish. You think we aren’t affected by this? You think we don’t feel just as scared and frustrated?”  
  
Goku sniffles but stays silent, even though the heaving breaths have largely receded and he can probably speak now. He, he’s never heard Sanzo say these things.  
  
“The point where there’s no return, Goku, is when you _do_ normalize it. When you accept what it tells you you can and can’t do, when you stop sending your brain contradictory messages. The difference between someone who survives and someone who doesn’t is that the person who lives is too damn stubborn to let anyone tell him what to do, who will live on if only to spite whoever, or whatever, is trying to kill him.”  
  
Sanzo pushes Goku away from him and grasps both of his shoulders, hard. “I don’t want you to normalize it, and I really, really hate it when people lie to me. And that’s what you’ve done by trying to just make everything seem ok when we both know it’s not. But I’m not going to treat you any differently.” Violet eyes glare into Goku’s golden ones. The next words are snarled, thrown out in defiant challenge. “I’m not going to fucking just let you give up and stop caring. I’m going to make you do the same damn shit and _fight_ for your right to live. It’s not about just you anymore. You can’t just selfishly decide to give up when someone’s given you time or love or respect, you don’t get to just take that and then go off and die.”  
  
And that puts Goku’s brain into that rainbow pinwheel. Wait. Loading. What. Loading. “So . . . you’re saying I owe you?” Goku repeats slowly, incredulously. Momentarily blue screened as he fights to process what the hell’s going on. Sanzo just glares back.  
  
“Yes. Yes I am.”  
  
Goku blinks a couple times. Then he can’t help it, it’s just such a—a Sanzo thing to do and say. He can’t help but laugh, as weak as it is. Sanzo lets go and draws back, arms crossing, insulted.  
“Last time I give you a damn pep talk.”  
  
Goku sobers and begins haltingly, “So you . . . you’re going to stay?”  
  
Sanzo rolls his eyes. “What the hell do you think I’ve _been_ doing all this time?”  
  
Goku picks at his bed, using an arm to try to eradicate the remnants of tears. “But I’m—” Doing chemo. He can’t say that out loud yet. Not yet. “Aren’t you tired of always visiting me? An-And just . . . dealing with me?”  
  
“Sometimes I get annoyed and have to spend a day or a few away from you,” Sanzo admits readily, “you’re so damn obnoxious. That’s it.”  
  
“But I . . . can’t do things anymore. And these past days, you come over but then I’m sick or tired and just lie there.”  
  
“That’s when I get caught up on all the schoolwork I didn’t do because you were loud and energetic,” comes the deadpan.  
  
“. . . people don’t like me as much if I’m not smiling, when I’m not happy.”  
  
“They’re not worth your time then.”  
  
“Sanzo. . . .”  
  
“Now get your ass up, we’re going to Koumyou to discuss your options, and you’re going to walk there.”  
  
“I don’t—I really can’t. . . .”  
  
“. . . even Gojyo will outlive you at this rate.”  
  
“WHAT? That cockroach . . . no way am I losing to him.” Goku’s chin gains the definition that comes with stubbornness and sheer determined willpower. He swings his legs over and puts his feet on the ground. He pushes up with his hands, but only gets a few inches before he falls back to sitting. He bites his lip and looks at Sanzo uncertainly. But Sanzo justs taps his foot expectantly. It takes three more humiliating tries, but then Goku’s up and Sanzo has one of those smiles—those that he can’t quite manage to hide—and Goku starts to think maybe he can do this. He sways and stumbles and his head is fuzzy. He feels like he’ll fall any moment, but he ends up walking the whole way without Sanzo having to actively assist.

 

* * *

 

They’ve prepped him. They’ve told him in detail what would happen at each step. But it’ll be his first time going through chemo and Goku is _terrified_. He’s grasping at anything and everything as a distraction, and so it’s only natural his curiosity turns back to Sanzo, who’s holding a book in his hands. “Hey, Sanzo?” The blonde’s grunt of acknowledgment is enough for him. “What caused you to lose your will? Why did you stop caring? And . . . why did you keep fighting?”  
  
Sanzo’s silent for so long. But Goku’s lost all desire to reach for anything to occupy himself with. He’s found it. Now instead of being nervous and afraid about his first round of chemo, his stomach is a bag of churning worms sluggishly pushing at his insides with the dank, stark fear that he’s gone too far this time.  
  
“My parents threw me in a river when I was about six or something,” Sanzo replies finally, much too casually. The worms are crawling in blood now, causing true horror to blossom across Goku’s arms and legs in raised bumps of cold cold disbelief.  
  
“They aren’t worth thinking about now. But I remember hearing what parents were supposed to be like, and wondering what I had done to make them hate me enough to throw me away. But then I couldn’t figure it out. And if I couldn’t change things anyway, what was the point? Nothing had a point anymore. Much less wishful thinking about ‘if only they’d been better. . . .’ They weren’t better. They were selfish bastards and good riddance. So then instead of giving up, I became angry. I stopped caring about what others thought, no one wanted to associate with a dirty street rat anyway, and did what I wanted.” And Sanzo’s still speaking with clinical precision and detachment, and it scares Goku more than anything else has. “And then I pissed off the wrong gang member and got beat almost to death, but was found and brought here, to this hospital.” Sanzo never felt like his condition when he was brought to the hospital was worth such self-serving fakery as pity or wishful thinking. He survived. Despite everything, he lived. He’d managed for a few years on his own before ending up there. And Sanzo would always choose the shitty path that led him to Koumyou over staying with his deadbeat blood parents.  
  
“They were trying to treat me when I woke up. I bit and kicked my way out of their hands and squeezed between vending machines where they couldn’t reach me. And then Koumyou came in. Called me by my birth name, which they’d found out, and then “Kouryuu” when I shouted at him that that wasn’t my name.” And for the first time, the impersonal calm wavered as a snort of true humor came. “Fucking tactless asshole.” And the annoyance sounds like an endearment. “Koumyou waited patiently until I agreed he could come nearer, even while all the nurses screeched about needing to start treatment and give him medicine—traumatized kid or not.”  
  
It seems Sanzo doesn’t intend to say anything more then, but Goku can’t let it be left like this. The worms will feed on each other and him until he can ease . . . something. “And then Koumyou adopted you?”  
  
Sanzo shrugs. “I told him I wasn’t going to let anyone or anything take my control from me again. And he asked if I’d like to live with him. Said he wouldn’t make me do anything.” Sanzo stares into somewhere Goku can’t follow. “And he never did. He never made me change, never made me smile, or eat or wear or do anything I didn’t want to. Social workers were breathing down his neck all the time, he had to go to to more than a few court cases because of me. But he never made me normalize anything. Never made me socially ‘acceptable.’”  
  
Weak as he feels, Goku pushes off his blanket and crawls over to collapse against Sanzo. The only sound is breathing at first, then pages start turning again, filling the air with the brush of paper, a harmony to the beating of hearts. “I’m glad you didn’t change, that you stayed you,” Goku tells Sanzo. “And I’m glad you don’t want me to feel I have to change either.” Sanzo’s tense and he doesn’t say anything, but he hasn’t yelled or pushed Goku away either so the boy stays leaning against him and sleeps until Pippi comes to get him. And even though he wakes to brisk preparation, Goku wakes also, to the gentle soothing of Sanzo’s fingers through his hair.

 

* * *

 

“Uh, you sure about this kid?” Kenren asks. Goku meets his eyes in the mirror and grins.  
  
“Yeah!”  
  
“A new hairdo is what you had to do so urgently?? Tenpou and I sneaked you out of the hospital you know, behind Sanzo’s back, nonetheless.” Kenren looks around the place, having never been in a hair salon that’s, well, cozy. Brick walls, warm lighting, honey wood floors, and an old antique iron clock above the door. The people are friendly and efficient and joke around with customers while also discussing everything from politics to frogs with them.  
  
Goku fidgets, pulling on his fingers and shifting in his chair. “Koumyou, Koumyou said I should do something fun with my hair. Since it’s. Going to fall out. He said to do whatever I wanted.”  
“Ah! So that’s why he slipped me his credit card as we sneaked out!” Tenpou exclaimed, finger held aloft.  
  
“Wait, what? You just forgot to mention something like that?” Kenren demands. Even after all this time, Tenpou still amazes him. And not necessarily in a good way. The devious look Tenpou shoots him clues him in. Bastard, wanting to see Kenren worry. He’ll have to get revenge on his significant other. “Well, go crazy then, kid.” Kenren says, flapping his hand at the nervous kid as he leans back to wait for the appointment to end.  
  
Neither him nor Tenpou could imagine what it’s like losing your hair, after all. Gotta be scary when it happens like this. Not really something anyone can prepare themselves for.

And that’s how Goku ends up with a j-rock-inspired rainbow haircut. The hairdresser was thrilled, exclaiming they’d never had so much fun with a haircut before. Everyone in the place got to choose one color for Goku’s hair. Kenren and Tenpou had bets on what Sanzo’s reaction would be (Kenren was betting heart attack, while Tenpou was voting mental breakdown) but before Sanzo can do more than draw in a deep breath and forget how to breathe it back out, Koumyou pops his head out of his office. “You look just like an anime character! Or one of those bands, um . . . kpop? Jpop?” Koumyou exclaims immediately on seeing him. And damn if Goku’s smile has ever been any wider. Like Sanzo can make a huge fuss after that. In any case, he’s distracted by his godfather’s next exclamation: “Ah, I think my ponytail dates me a bit now. . . . Maybe I should go do something like Goku, what do you think, Kouryuu?”  
  
Cause Sanzo may not have been able to do anything about Goku, but he sure as hell isn’t going to let his godfather do anything similar.

 

* * *

 

After another round of chemo, Goku is lying in bed feeling sick while Sanzo sits nearby and reads. Goku’s hair is falling out at a much faster rate and is almost gone now. They’ve talked about a hat or wig, but as much as Goku doesn’t like the look (because even in a hospital where such sights are common, people tend to either stare or avoid looking at an obvious chemo patient), he doesn’t want to hide either—and to him that’s hiding.  
  
“GOKU!!” Lirin skids into the room excitedly and Goku gives her a tired smile.  
  
“Did you disinfect?” Sanzo asks disinterestedly as he flips a page. Even after this has become a norm, Goku flinches a bit, but Lirin just blows a raspberry at Sanzo and picks up Goku’s hands in her own as she perches next to him.  
  
“Of course I did, Droopy-eyes!”  
  
A soft knock on the door draws everyone’s attention to where Hakkai and Gojyo are standing on the threshold. “We did as well,” Hakkai informs them with a polite smile. Gojyo’s holding a gift bag decorated with a motif of the Dragonball balls and bright red and yellow tissue paper poking out of the top.  
  
“What’s that for?” Goku asks, blinking.  
  
“You, dummy.”  
  
“We’re celebrating.” Hakkai smiles at Goku as he starts unpacking the snack foods they’ve found Goku can eat during and directly after a chemo treatment—Hakkai’s homemade custard, orange juice, ginger candy, bananas, rice, cooked carrots, popsicles, jello, ice milk, Yaone’s special sorbet that used half an orange as a bowl.  
  
“But it’s not my birthday or anything. . . .”  
  
“But you’ve made it through three rounds of chemo, and that’s a huge accomplishment.” Hakkai explains. Sanzo’s not sure that’s really something they should be celebrating, and Goku looks uncertain as well.  
  
“Kou and Doku said their apologizes for not being able to make it, they’re both at work. And Yaone will stop by after her appointment,” Lirin tells Goku. “Anyway, present first!”  
  
Hakkai chuckles, “Shouldn’t you let Goku decide when to open it?”  
  
“No way, man. We’ve been holdin’ onto this thing for forever.”  
  
“Gojyo, it’s been two days.”  
  
“Exactly.” The redhead dumps the bag onto Goku’s lap. “Kanzeon pitched in on this as well, but it’s mostly from me and Lirin.”  
  
Sanzo’s head jerks up. “Kanzeon? _Ne_ had a hand in this?” As if that’s ever a good thing. But Gojyo just smiles cheekily at him.  
  
Goku pulls the bag closer to him and hesitates, but Lirin and Gojyo are staring expectantly, and he doesn’t want to disappoint them, so he starts pulling out the tissue paper. Whatever it is, it’s heavy as Goku lifts it out and removes the tissue paper it’s wrapped in. And it’s . . . a metal golden colored headband? Tiara?  
  
“What the fuck is that?”  
  
“That, dear Sanzo, is a recreation of the traditional Chinese Monkey King headband for our monkey here,” Gojyo declares proudly.  
  
“Goku?” Lirin prods, leaning forward. “Do you like it?” She’s chewing on her lower lip nervously as Goku just stares at it.  
  
“They got it because you didn’t want a hat or anything, and thought this would be cool for you to wear instead. You don’t have to of course.” Hakkai explains gently.  
  
“Can I have a mirror?” Goku asks.  
  
Gojyo pulls the one in the closet off the door and holds it up in front of Goku as he puts on the headband. He stares at his reflection for a long moment, before a grin blossoms, becoming brighter and wider with each passing petal. “It’s perfect, thank you.”

 

* * *

 

Goku’s in a good mood so far. He hasn’t vomited this morning, and that’s something worth celebrating, and he and Lirin will use anything as an excuse to get yummy food into their vicinity. Sanzo goes with Lirin only partially willingly, grumbling about how if he doesn’t he won’t get his coffee, much less anything edible. So Yaone and Goku are waiting, and she’s _trying_ , he can see, and he wasn’t going to say anything, but. . . .  
  
“It’s ok to have bad days, you know. That’s what you and Hakkai tell me. It goes for everyone, right?” His smile is all gentle _karuna_.  
  
“Ah, I’m sorry. I just—you have so much to deal with as it is.”  
  
“Mm, but it kinda helps, ya know?” Goku gestures around him. “If I keep thinking about all this stuff, it’s easy to just kinda fall into it and forget that there’s other things going on outside of it. Hearing what others are dealing with helps me find perspective again.”  
  
“Heh, I suppose that’s true,” Yaone smiles back. “It’s always helped me to listen to Kou and Doku and Lirin.”  
  
“You want to talk about it?” Goku scooches over as much as he can so Yaone can sit on the bed next to him rather than one of those grossly uncomfortable hospital chairs.  
  
“There isn’t really much to say. Just one of those bad days.”  
  
Goku waits patiently. Sometimes that’s all, but in his experience, he’ll think that’s all, then burst out with something else.  
  
“Well, I guess I’m a bit frustrated,” Yaone exclaims, voice louder and shriller than her normal clement pitch. “I know logically that nothing is wrong particular to today and I shouldn’t be feeling sad but I just will sometimes for no reason! And my psychologist says it’s because depression changes the chemistry makeup and pathways of the brain, and that’s why it pulls me back into this. But it’s just so maddening!” Yaone comes back to herself as abruptly as she left. “Oh, I’m sorry, Goku.” She looks guilty and ashamed.  
  
Telling her it’s alright again won’t change anything, so Goku tries a different tact. “I don’t know exactly what that’s like, but I know how scary it is to not be in control of your body and sometimes your reactions.” He moves so they’re leaning against each other. “You can always come talk to me about how frustrating and scary it is. I need to talk about it too sometimes.”  
  
“Thank you, Goku.” Yaone takes his hand and their fingers entwine. “So how are you today? I know you’re excited that you didn’t throw up this morning.” She giggles, because he’d made that obvious and demanded treats from Sanzo as a reward.  
  
“Hmm, I’m great today! If I’m still doing well when Kanzeon comes to check in next, Koumyou and Sanzo will take me out to the courtyard for a bit.”  
  
“Oh, that’s exciting! It’s always so beautiful. . . .”  
  
Yaone and Goku end up lying on the bed side by side and talking about flowers and plants, as Yaone knows all about them. Until Sanzo comes in and throws a pudding cup at Goku, and Lirin bounces in and jumps on the bed to join them, scattering snacks everywhere.

 

* * *

 

Goku was doing so much better. He was stronger and able to go outside more, he was throwing up less and smiling more. Sanzo knows, he’s always known, that people often seem to be recovering right before they get worse. And yet  
     he still feels shocked. sick. angry.  
     when he learns Goku’s taken a downward turn again. when he walks in and sees Goku lying there with a catheter, drip, and EKG.  
Sanzo waits for hours.

 

“Sa—Sanzo.” A cough.  
  
Sanzo grabs the water cup and straw and brings it to Goku immediately. He only manages a few sips, and yet still has the gall to beam up at the blonde brightly.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
And Goku’s voice is too weak. Too raspy. Too . . . not him. Sanzo scowls. “You were doing so well, idiot. What did you do _now_?”  
  
“Ah, well, you know. . . . tested how fast wheelchairs could go, stuff like that.”  
  
There are sores around the brunette’s mouth. Yet another side effect of chemo. They crack when he talks, angry at renewed signs of life. Too bad for them Sanzo’s wrath is greater.  
  
“Idiot.”  
  
“Heh.”  
  
The worst part about hospitals, Sanzo considers, may be the beeping of the machines. The constant. Beep. Noise that interr—Beep —Upts one’s. Beep. Thoughts and makes. Beep. It hard to think. Beep. And irritation. Beep. Builds up into. Beep. Anger.  
Damn. He’d love to shoot these pieces of shit.  
  
“Ne, Sanzo.”  
  
“What?” He doesn’t like how Goku’s looking at him. That open fondness and amusement. That peace.  
  
“Thanks for everything.”  
  
“Hn. Whatever.”  
  
“Hehe, love you too.”  
  
Obviously, Sanzo won’t deign this with a response.  
  
“You’re like . . . an older brother or something. Since I guuueess you’re not quite old enough to be my dad.”  
  
Sanzo snorts, then glares at the beaming patient. Goku already looks tired, eyelids heavy and closing before they’re pulled back up onlytoinstantlycollapseagain . . . then pulled back up once more.  
  
“Shut up and get some more sleep.”  
  
A slight curving to Goku’s mouth is the only sign that he heard. The sores have split open further.  
  
And Sanzo waits some more.

Beep.

 

“S—San—zo.”  
  
Sanzo startles out of his semiconscious doze and feels all the aches of the deathtrap of a chair anew as he levers himself up to bring Goku more water. The brunette’s temperature is high. Too high.  
  
. . . and that’s fear. Annoying, irritating fear. Sanzo hates being helpless. He’s looking for something to do, but Goku reaches for his wrist.  
  
“Stay with me?”  
  
Fingers suggest downward movement, lacking strength to demand or insist. For once, Sanzo lets them command him, and sits down on the bed next to Goku. But still Goku’s hand brushes against his wrist.  
  
“You’re as needy as ever,” Sanzo grumbles as he acquiesces and lies down. A tired and thin laugh, but one that’s still full of amusement. Then they lie there quietly.  
  
Beep.  
  
Well, as quiet as they can in this damn place. Really, he should go and demand why these shitty things can’t be quieter. Why the hell are they so loud? Lying here, dying, to this fucking chorus—dying. No. No, he refuses.  
  
“I’m not scared anymore.” Goku’s voice is still quiet but there’s a peace, a strength in it.  
  
“You should be. I’ll still hit you you know.”  
  
They both know Goku was never afraid of Sanzo.  
  
“I’m really not, you know. I’m ok with this.”  
  
“Don’t be stupid.” Sanzo grits out.  
  
“I am though.” Goku insists, meeting Sanzo’s glaring anger calmly. “I met you and Nataku . . . Koumyou and Kanzeon, Kenren and Tenpou . . . Lirin, Gojyo and Hakkai, Yaone, Dokugakuji, Kougaiji . . . even Ukoku.” Goku’s hand squeezes Sanzo’s lightly, and when did they even start holding hands? “I’m happy. I was happy here. I was happy with all of you.”  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
Don’t talk like that.  
Don’t say such things.  
Don’t you dare.  
  
“It’s alright, Sanzo. It’ll be alright. You won’t get rid of me that easily. I’ll still be around.”  
Sanzo’s holding him to that. He is.

Beep.

They fall asleep next to each other.

A hunched shadow blocks the light from the hallway when the door opens wider and Ukoku checks in. He takes notes on temperature and heart rate and blood pressure, half-wakes Goku to get a blood draw. Then he watches quietly.

Beep.

Ukoku leaves without making Sanzo move. Leaves the door open so only a sliver of light shines in. Enough to see by and to comfort. Not enough to hurt. Not enough to disturb the shadows that cover. That dull reality and give one time to accept what daylight brings. What daylight will bring.

 

* * *

 

Daylight dawns in bright rose and orange tendrils wrapped through the pale, bright blue of new promise.

Goku doesn’t wake to greet it with his usual smile.

 

* * *

 

They bury him in his favorite courtyard, under the sakura tree’s aegis, surrounded by red spider lilies and sunflowers, stalks driving upward so the petals can open one by one under the sun. Goku had always liked how sunflowers follow the sun, even when it’s behind grey opaque clouds, and how the red spider lilies’ shape reminded him of Nataku’s hair. Many patients and staff will attend the small dedication they have planned in the hospital after, but the actual burial is done as the sun rises, and is a more private affair.  
  
Sanzo processes none of it. Hears nothing. Only sees the open casket, and fucking Goku looks so damn peaceful, that idiot monkey. Who the hell does he think he is, lying dead and being so damn at peace with it?  
  
People walk by and say last words afterward, placing flowers carefully on and around the boy so by the time Sanzo’s there, he’s practically drowning in them. Sanzo would like to drag him back to life, yell at him, and then literally drown him. He has nothing to say and almost chucks the flower at the-not-Goku’s face, but in the end, can’t bring himself to. He places it between Goku’s hands instead, even though it means having to touch the weird, cold clay-like hands of the dead. But Goku liked smelling flowers and tickling other people’s noses with them. So. Not that it matters, since he’s dead.  
  
Really, watching a casket go down is pretty melodramatic.  
  
Other people seem to think so, as they start leaving, without even watching the gift-wrapped body finish getting down.  
  
Koumyou stops in front of Sanzo. “Oh, Kouryuu.” The older man hugs him, though Sanzo’s arms stay stiff at his sides. When Koumyou draws back, he tilts Sanzo’s chin up, looking into the purple depths that have been hidden under golden-blonde bangs. “Goku’s _Metta_ and _Mudita_ were beyond compare, but don’t make them bind him here,” he whispers into his adoptive son’s ear, an acting energy that finally draws responding movement. A simple head nod, then Koumyou gently grasps Sanzo’s bicep momentarily before the doctor moves away to where Ukoku is waiting at the door to the courtyard, leaving to prepare for the public dedication ceremony.  
  
Whereas Koumyou merely encircled Sanzo, Kanzeon pulls him forward into nir arms, his face just above nir boobs, gripping him as tightly as ne can. One of those hugs that is restrictive and almost too much, one that you can’t ask for . . . but also the type that is so secure and makes you feel like the shattering world around can be staved off, somehow, during this hug. (Even when you know it can’t, that the world is already breaking and will break whether you see it or not, whether you acknowledge it yet or not.) Ne holds him for a long time. “I’m so sorry,” ne tells him softly. But eventually, ne has to let go. Ne puts a hand against Sanzo’s cheek briefly, looks even as his eyes stay fixed, then ne too leaves.  
  
Hakkai and Yaone drag Gojyo and Dokugakuji off to help, while Kougaiji leads Lirin away to get something to drink. She just holds on and lets him steer her. Each leave with pats to Sanzo’s shoulder or brief grips on his arm. Jikaku is one of the last to leave.  
  
“I should not have outlived Goku,” the old man tells Sanzo. “I accepted the cost of my karma, but the price he paid was too steep.” Jikaku pauses and Sanzo shoots him an impatient glare, not that it ever affects the geezer. “We both have a burden to bear now. We must live the remainders of our lives for his, which was cut too short, as well as for ourselves.”  
  
And shit, if that doesn’t make him bitter. “I’m not living his damned life for him. If he wanted to live it, he should be here.”  
  
“You know it wasn’t something he chose.”  
  
“He made his peace with it instead of fighting harder.”  
  
“Who is the victor? The one that fights even when he has already lost, or the one that accepts his loss and turns it into a thing he can claim as his own—something that is a prize for him?”  
  
Fucking _koans_. Fucking Jikaku saying shit that makes sense then giving Sanzo that stupid knowing smile that is too soft before moving on. Fucking geezer.  
  
Then it’s just Tenpou, Kenren, and Sanzo. Kenren and Tenpou who end up on either side of Sanzo and the three just stay there, silently. Without remembering how he got there, Sanzo finds himself sitting under the sakura tree with the other two, watching the funeral worker fill the hole in with dirt.  
  
When he leaves, Kenren pulls out sake and three cups. None of them say exactly what they’re drinking for. Sanzo’s drinking for himself. Like hell he’ll drink to goddamn Goku, that asshole.

 

“Sanzo.”  
  
“Hn.” Sanzo doesn’t take his eyes off the burial site.  
  
“Sanzo, they’re starting the public memorial and dedication.”  
  
Hakkai. It’s Hakkai, Sanzo finally decides. He doesn’t move. There are people talking about shit that’s unimportant to him. The clearing of a throat.  
  
“Alright, kid. We’re going to the event, Tenpou an’ me. We need to leave right after, but you need anythin’ you just call us, we’ll be right there.” Kenren’s hand is heavy, too heavy, and warm on Sanzo’s shoulder. Sanzo nods. Aborted and mechanic. Kenren stands back up and lets Tenpou lean in.  
  
“Really, Genjo, call at any time. Kenren and I will be by tomorrow. We’ll bring coffee and Kanzeon will likely stop by with cinnamon rolls for you and Koumyou.”  
Another jagged nod.  
  
“Sanzo, are you sure you don’t want. . . .”  
  
A heavy thump next to him and the sour smell of beer and the smoky tang of cigarettes. Gojyo for sure. No one else smokes that pissant brand. For once, at least, the redhead doesn’t talk. Gojyo lights up, and Sanzo reaches for his but apparently left them somewhere. Damn monkey’s fault.  
  
Gojyo’s hand comes into his vision, offering a lit cigarette.  
  
“This better not be the one you were smoking,” Sanzo warns.  
  
Gojyo just rolls his eyes. “Like I’d waste my first newly lit cigarette on you.”  
  
Hakkai sits down too, but doesn’t admonish either of them for smoking. Then again, Koumyou was smoking his pipe here earlier, and Tenpou, Kenren, and Ukoku all lit up at some point or another. Instead, Hakkai cradles a mug of tea in his hands (from where?) and sits silently. Hakkai had been the first to come sit with him. Koumyou had been caught in a swirl of activity as soon as Goku died. Kenren and Tenpou had jobs and shit. Sanzo doesn’t recall anyone else before Hakkai was handing him coffee then sitting next to him in the hallway, staring blankly at Goku’s room as the nurses stripped it down. Other patients needed it, after all.  
  
Now there’s three of them staring at a fucking tree instead.

 

Kou comes by briefly after the event and says the four of them (him, Lirin, Doku, and Yaone) are leaving and will stop by Koumyou’s house tomorrow evening with dinner. Then he stands there a little longer and it’s awkward and quiet. Sanzo finally has to look away from that damned tree and do something. So he looks at Kougaiji.  
  
“Yeah, thanks.” And it’s flat and dry.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Eventually, they end up shaking hands (and who started it?) before Kou leaves with his posse.  
  
Gojyo acquired more sake from somewhere and pours cups for the three of them as they go back to staring. For Sanzo it’s a wordless, thoughtless meditation. Not a mediation on an idea or with a focus of ignoring thoughts or some other stupid shit. Just mere existence. The aggressive but narrow existence of a plant forcing its roots through rock so that it can continue surviving. Even when maybe there’s no meaning in it anymore.

 

It’s a while before Kanzeon comes by. At this point it’s night and visiting hours are over. Everyone’s exhausted but that doesn’t stop Kanzeon from dragging first Gojyo, then Hakkai off the ground and making them leave, after ensuring they have Sanzo and Koumyou’s number and the rough plans for how tomorrow will pan out. Hakkai and Gojyo will take over lunch, apparently. Kanzeon can’t get Sanzo off the ground though.  
  
Because Goku didn’t want to be alone. He said everyone always leaves eventually. Sanzo agrees with him on that. Goku went and fucking died, and he doesn’t expect Hakkai or Gojyo to keep coming by for weekly mahjong. Yaone, Lirin, Dokugakuji, and Kougaiji have even less reason to continue visiting. He doesn’t particularly want them to anyway. It’d be out of pity or them trying to hold onto Goku who’s fucking dead and gone.  
  
But Goku didn’t want to be alone.  
  
Though he has Nataku’s decayed bones and worms for comfort. And the hospital with its sick and dying around him.  
  
Still, Sanzo doesn’t get up to leave.  
  
Kanzeon waits and watches Sanzo until Koumyou enters the courtyard silently, then goes and talks to him in hushed voices. As if they’re respecting a church service or some bullshit. Koumyou’s always quiet, but it irks Sanzo how Kanzeon—usually as loud as ne wants, and as brash too—is lowering nir voice.  
  
It’s a relief when ne leaves.  
  
Koumyou doesn’t say anything, just flows in and sits down as gracefully as moonlight landing on breeze-ruffled waters. With methodic movements, he fills his kiseru. It’s only when the dark is lifting from the sky that his adoptive father speaks. “Time to go home, Kouryuu.”  
  
Sanzo’s nod is stiff (when did he last move his neck?). He follows Koumyou to the car as silent as sunlight, but there’s the burning in him too, heating minute by minute. The car ride is quiet (as silent as Goku’s bones), but the fire in Sanzo is beginning to snap and snarl, demanding release. Before Koumyou is even at a full stop, Sanzo’s unbuckling his seatbelt. Inside, he heads for the stairs leading to the bedrooms, but Koumyou’s voice stops him before he’s even halfway across the living room.  
  
“Sanzo.”  
  
Sanzo doesn’t turn.  
  
“Let’s talk.”  
  
Sanzo does turn at that, slowly and deliberately with a snarl of a smile. “There’s nothing to talk about. After all, that’s all anything is in the end, isn’t it? Nothing. All Goku is. All you are. All I am. Just worthless trash forgotten when we decay in human landfills.” Anger, the only emotion he was capable of, has been discarded. Only tenacious roots are left, forcing their way through rock and dirt and grime, tangles and desperate—a rigid determination without any purpose except survival.  
  
Koumyou turns away and hangs up his coat quietly, then heads to the kitchen, stopping when he’s next to Sanzo, both looking straight ahead rather than at each other.  
  
“You’re right. Hmm, I really shouldn’t have bothered with Goku, or any of them.” The words are spoken with Koumyou’s usual calm eccentricity, his quiet humor. “Or with you.”  
  
Sanzo meets his adoptive father’s eyes, anger resurfacing. Koumyou just smiles, amused and sardonic. “What’s wrong, Kouryuu? You said so yourself. Humans are no more than insects.”  
  
Certainty makes the words reasonable.  
  
But even as his logic agrees, disgust rises in Sanzo and releases in a blind punch. Koumyou catches it easily, bends Sanzo’s wrist back just to the edge of pain, eyes as uncaring as white teeth. Upekkha at the zenith of completion.  
  
“No,” Sanzo bites out, not even aware of what he’s saying.  
  
“No?” Koumyou actually cocks his head, bemused.  
  
“No, fuck you. No.”  
  
Koumyou pulls him closer by his wrist, leaning forward with a smile of scalpels and white walls. “It’s pointless. Memory fades of the brief glint of life, leaving only darkness in its wake. Lives no more than the sparks off a fire, bright then swallowed in the night.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Sanzo snarls. “The world defies nothing. All of reality and existence deny it. There is no lack, no blank spaces anywhere between stars, no complete and total rest. Blades of grass are torn apart to reveal bones of atoms, chains of energy and gravity. There is no end—only more for all eternity. Decaying, dead bodies birth new processes in the human body, energy started only by other systems going dark. Our broken insect bodies decompose into loose particles and are eaten by the universe. We’re trapped and bound for infinity. Something and nothing fade in meaning against what is and will be and was. We’re tiny contained existences eventually broken apart and stomped down and sucked again into the maw of no end.” Sanzo has no idea what he really said. Just spewed out words in angry defiance.  
  
“Lacking free will, bound to the whims of the universe. Why live then?” Koumyou challenges.  
  
“Because it’s our choice. Perhaps our only choice—acceptance or denial. Accept everything or deny the world, pick and choose, consciously or not. You’re bound by your choices. You took me in, took Goku in, took Ukoku in. You cannot deny your acceptance of us, even if you eventually deny us.”  
  
Koumyou lets go of Sanzo’s wrist. “Yet you deny all acceptance. You deny even the existence of choice. You rebel against the only free will Goku had—his choice to accept.” The truth laid out in the stark white light of the moon, pulled out from the unwilling dark, screaming and scrabbling. “You deny your own acceptance of him, of your own choice, and of his very being. You yourself are erasing him. Like the frightened child you are.”  
  
Sanzo’s hands are shaking. He ignores them.  
  
“I’m not—I don’t—” Koumyou watches silently, weighing and judging. Sanzo stumbles back a step, then gravity tugs him down. Koumyou looks down on him wordlessly, then turns and walks away, bedroom door closing with a soft click. He takes the moonlight with him. Allows darkness to close in once more.

 

At dawn, Sanzo stands on his own. He makes coffee. Reads the newspaper. Koumyou comes in. Makes breakfast.  
In the quiet blossom of early day, they sit on a hill and fold orange airplanes, throwing them to flare briefly against the blue of the sky, edges highlighted by light as the sun’s rays strengthen and blaze opposition to the night and the moon.

 

In a hospital courtyard, the light catches on red spider lilies as sunflowers reach for the sun. A beautiful moment in the brief flash of a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit goes to the Saiyuki Discord group: everyone for helping me figure out what job everyone would have and for Goku’s costume, girlwitharibbon gave me the wonderful description of Ukoku as a mortician, rachel is sg for the Kenren dressing up as a sexy firefighter idea and a Tenpou Vampire, pokemonpika77 for Hakkai as Jason (Friday the 13th), Mariku Magica for sexy cowboy Gojyo, Mama Hakkai and Vincnette for Ukoku costume brainstorming, and sorae for the idea that drunk Gojyo ends up in the hospital due to “how was he supposed to know they were lesbians?”


End file.
